BOWLING GREEN — Most college football coaches prefer to be less tied down than a Kardashian, never saying never when it comes to the possibility of leaving for another job.
Bowling Green’s Scot Loeffler is not most coaches.
Talking to him this week, he revealed something I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a coach say.
When he was hired at Bowling Green in November, 2018, know what he told his bosses?
“I promised this place that I would stay here five years,” Loeffler said.
Promised?
“Guaranteed,” he said.
And to put his money where his mouth was, he agreed to anchor his contract with the costliest buyout in the Mid-American Conference. If Loeffler were to leave Bowling Green today, he would owe the school $1 million.
“I knew what we walked into,” he told me. “I'm not interested in winning fast and leaving. I’m interested in building this place back the right way ... and to do this the right way it’s going to take all of five years, so let’s just put that on the table. They wanted to make sure I was committed and put in all these ridiculous buyouts. I looked at the [contract] and I go, ‘OK, I’m going to be here anyway, so what are we talking about?’”
Consider his words marked.
Now, could they come back to bite him? Anything is possible.
But in a transient league — and at a school in which the last coach who enjoyed success (Dino Babers) left the football program high and dry after two seasons — it is a notable pledge of commitment, along with a nod to the scale of challenge ahead of him.
As the 45-year-old Loeffler sets off on his second season at Bowling Green, my sense is the Falcons remain a year away ... from being a year away.
And that’s OK.
To appreciate why Loeffler was willing to grow roots here, you have to appreciate — BG fans might have a different word — what he inherited.
It wasn’t much. The previous staff drove the program into the ground as if it were an engine-smoking, muffler-dragging 1987 Ford Fiesta.
Not to rehash the Mike Jinks era, but former athletic director Chris Kingston hired a career Texas high school coach with three years of college experience — none as a coordinator — who had never so much as set foot in Ohio. Jinks, a good man in a bad situation, then threw together a staff that included seven first-time Division I coaches, none with Ohio ties, either.
The result was a fiasco wrapped inside of a disaster, or, in the memorable words of one booster, “a total train wreck.” Bowling Green won nine games in the worst three-season stretch in program history, and, worse, did so aimlessly, laying few bricks for the future. By the end, 30 scholarship signees remained from Jinks’ three scattershot recruiting classes.
The next coach would begin with a hand that made a 2 and 7 offsuit seem like a royal flush.
Loeffler recognized as much, and, in his interview, made sure that he and his soon-to-be bosses were on the same page.
In an alternate world, Bowling Green might have preferred a candidate who promised the moon — and fast — pledging to load up on transfers that could provide the program a short-term jolt. Given the depths of the roster and the win-now nature of the business, it was a natural temptation.
“If you want to do that, don't hire me,” Loeffler said. “I said it in the interview. I’m not good at going out and using a kid for a year. I'm not good at going out to recruit the junior college market. I've never had to do that in my life. It would have been completely the wrong fit.”
Of course, Bowling Green AD Bob Moosbrugger didn’t want that, either.
He wanted someone committed to recruiting and developing high school players in the immediate region.
A coach who could build something that lasts.
So he went with Loeffler, a former Michigan quarterback from Barberton, Ohio, who had 19 seasons of NFL and Division I coaching experience.
It was a sound choice, and if I was mixed on it at the time — Loeffler’s credentials as an offensive coordinator do not jump off the page — I am less so today.
In my book, Loeffler had two main jobs: Hire a veteran staff that knows the Midwest cold, and recruit the region like crazy. He’s done both, bringing the program an air of competence and a sense of direction. Along with his been-there-done-that staff — the Falcons’ full-time assistants have more than 90 years of NFL or college power-conference coaching experience between them — he signed 15 prospects from Ohio in a 2020 class ranked second in the MAC by 247Sports. (“They are going to be dudes,” Loeffler said. “There is no question.”)
You can see the wheels beginning to churn.
That doesn’t mean it will be a smooth ride. BG went 3-9 last year and — be honest — these next two seasons figure to be bumpier than the old Mean Streak at Cedar Point. BG might have the youngest team in the nation, with as much as 60 percent of its roster carrying freshman eligibility.
Best-case scenario, Loeffler will travel the arc of former Bowling Green coach Dave Clawson, who in a similar rebuild from 2009 to 2013 went 7-17 in his second and third seasons before breaking through in his fourth year.
Will that happen? No idea. The jury remains out.
But, at least, the process is sound.
And, as long as Bowling Green will have him, Loeffler pledges to see it through.
“Here’s the way I look at it: Football has done unbelievable things for my life,” he said. “And I believe in football that the minute you start quick fixing, and you use an institution to move on to better yourself, shame on you. This is my wife’s school, and there are a lot of people who have busted their butt here and done things right. I want to leave this thing in a good [place], and I want to have a program that’s sustainable after I leave. I don't want to use an institution. I don't believe in that at all. The people who have played here, I'm doing them a complete disservice if I do that.”
First Published October 27, 2020, 8:45 p.m.
