BOWLING GREEN — His bags packed and the team bus idling, Matt McDonald was set to start his first ever college football game the next day.

McDonald won the starting job in his first season at Bowling Green, and as the Falcons prepared to play at Kansas State in September, 2019, all McDonald needed was clearance from the NCAA — given to a number of high-profile transfer quarterbacks such as Justin Fields and Tate Martell — on his waiver request to play immediately.

The rules, however, had grown more stringent by the time McDonald’s case was up for review. Just as the bus was ready to leave for Manhattan, Kan., McDonald received word his final appeal had been denied.

His bags, and only his bags, came off the bus, an all-too-real signal he would wait yet another year for his chance to lead a Division I team.

"I just sat in the parking lot and cried a little bit,” McDonald said.

In another life, McDonald would have been a massive recruit already starting for a Power Five team. Instead, the football career of the now 22-year-old has been a buffet of delays and setbacks.

McDonald waited his turn to start at Mater Dei High School, the powerhouse California program that regularly produces high-level recruits, and when it finally arrived as a junior in 2015, he broke his left wrist in the second game of the season.

His backup was a sophomore named J.T. Daniels — who broke out immediately, became a five-star recruit, and cost McDonald the starting job in what is the single most important year of recruiting, especially for a quarterback.

After transferring to Mission Viejo High School, McDonald faced a make-or-break senior year during which he played well, but didn't draw much attention from recruiters.

"He missed his window," said Rob Johnson, the former NFL quarterback who was McDonald's position coach at Mission Viejo. "He played amazing, but nobody was on him, because he didn't play his junior year because he got hurt, so he had no tape."

McDonald did, however, earn the attention of Boston College after some convincing by Johnson, who simply asked for then-coordinator Scot Loeffler to at least take a look at the uncommitted quarterback.

“I told him, ‘I promise you he's better than one of the guys you're taking,’” Johnson said. “When Scot came to work him out, he was like a ball machine that day.”

McDonald earned a scholarship to BC, and after two years with the Eagles — a redshirt year and another during which he played only in a pair of blowouts — he made the decision to transfer, following Loeffler, whom Bowling Green had hired as its head coach.

But then came the waiver denial, a pandemic, and 15 more months of waiting, leading McDonald to joke the world simply wasn't ready for him to start.

It has been an ironic path for McDonald, who comes from a family of quarterbacks — his father, Paul, played for the Cleveland Browns from 1980 to 1985 — and has been a star athlete for most of his life.

“Up until he got to high school, life was very easy for him athletically,” Paul McDonald said. “He was always the best guy on the team in every sport, and things were very easy for him. It's just interesting how life has thrown all these challenges at him.”

Rather than mope all of last season, Matt McDonald threw himself into practices and attended coaches’ meetings, even scripting some of BG's red zone plans with Loeffler, a process he believes forced him to improve.

"I think all the adversity I've faced and how long I've had to wait made me a lot better," Matt McDonald said. "I think I'm the most prepared I could possibly be, and I always joke around that I have enough practice for a lifetime. Practice is great and all, but there's nothing like running out the tunnel under the bright lights, and I haven't done it since high school."

He has started only one year out of the past seven, but the redshirt junior finally will have his chance this year. Matt McDonald will be the unquestioned starter for the Falcons, who are scheduled to begin a six-game schedule Nov. 4 at Toledo.

The opportunity has been a long time coming, but the McDonalds believe all the waiting is how the journey was supposed to play out all along.

"My whole football career has really never been a straight line — it's always zig-zagging," Matt McDonald said. “People don't believe me when I say this, but I wouldn't change anything that happened in my past. I think it's made me more hungry, more determined, and gave me a chip on my shoulder."

The Falcons' quarterback remains a mystery to most fans, most of whom have not seen him play at all.

Bowling Green believes it is waiting to unleash a sizable talent — Loeffler said he thinks McDonald would be starting at Boston College — who has simply had an unconventional path to both the school and the starting job.

But all around the Bowling Green quarterback are supporters who believe his time to shine is coming sooner rather than later.

"Trust me, everyone is going to go, 'Who the hell is this kid, and where did this kid come from?’” Paul McDonald said. “I don't know if it's going to happen this year, but it's going to happen.”

First Published October 13, 2020, 5:39 p.m.