BOWLING GREEN — Bowling Green’s football team is down to 70 scholarship players following a handful of transfers and departures from the team.
Football Bowl Subdivision teams are allowed to have as many as 85 players on scholarship at one time.
Two offensive linemen — freshman Grant Abbott and redshirt sophomore Zach Dziengelewski — both left the team, according to Bowling Green. Redshirt senior Charles Lamar, who shuttled between running back and linebacker during his time at BG, also left the program.
Dziengelewski, a Swanton High School graduate, played in five games this season. Abbott was a true freshman who signed with BGSU earlier this year and had not appeared in a game.
Lamar played in all 12 games for Bowling Green in 2018, but only saw game action in the season-opening game this year.
Defensive backs James Harris, Jr., and Jai Nunn-Liddell announced their intentions to transfer from Bowling Green last month. Harris, a freshman sat out last season as a redshirt, then played in Bowling Green’s first three games of the season but did not appear again.
Nunn-Liddell, who transferred to BG from Troy, appeared in nine games during the 2018 season and made one tackle. He did not appear in a game this season.
Bowling Green coach Scot Loeffler, in his first season as the Falcons’ head coach, said the situation is challenging, but not at all unexpected.
“We knew that this would occur,” Loeffler said. “We knew our numbers were down and we knew there would be attrition and people would leave, and it’s probably still not over.”
The departures plus injuries will leave Bowling Green in a precarious position for three remaining games of the season.
Starting safety Jerry McBride is out for the season, BG took starting defensive tackle DeMontae Haigler off its depth chart, and running back Davon Jones has not played since being carted off the field Oct. 19.
Three additional starters did not play in the most recent game against Akron, and if neither Jones nor starting running back Andrew Clair can play Wednesday at Miami — Clair has battled a foot injury all season — Bryson Denley would be the only scholarship running back remaining.
BG also has only two scholarship quarterbacks available, and at one point, was starting three true freshmen in the secondary.
Current rules allow a FBS program to take a maximum of 25 new players, called initial counters, per season. Given the current state of the roster, Loeffler said recruiting will be critical to plug gaps on the roster.
“The key is, we’ve got to do a great job recruiting,” Loeffler said. “We can’t miss on anybody. You only have 25 initials, and those 25 initials have got to be the right ones, especially in the situation that we’re in.”
Loeffler has voiced support for a concept that would allow teams to take as many as 35 players in one season, but no more than 50 in a two-year period. He said the idea would be a tremendous help to programs in similar situations.
But for now, the next three recruiting classes will be paramount at Bowling Green
“’20, ’21, and ’22 are going to be everything,” Loeffler said. “[2020] is truly our first class we identified with our guys, our footprint, our character, everything we exemplify and we talk about — this will be our class.
“We need to have three good ones back-to-back-to-back. Three great ones and then you’ll feel great about yourself.”
First Published November 12, 2019, 6:01 p.m.