BOWLING GREEN — The shortened 2020 season plus the geographically condensed nature of the Mid-American Conference gave Bowling Green a schedule that's nearly impossible to find in modern college football.
Not only will the Falcons not board a plane this season — they won't even leave Ohio.
Bowling Green arrived for the easiest travel of its three road games Wednesday night at Toledo, and being just a short drive away from the Michigan border is as close as the Falcons will come to leaving their home state this season.
MAC teams are playing only divisional opponents after the first week, and five of the East Division teams are in Ohio. The only one outside Ohio is Buffalo, which comes to Bowling Green in even years — keeping BG contained only to Ohio this year.
The Falcons are the only Football Bowl Subdivision team that will not leave its home state in 2020.
Bowling Green coach Scot Loeffler laughed and said "Love it!" when asked about the country's most travel-friendly schedule, but said he hasn't paid it any mind.
"It's an awesome question, but with COVID and all this craziness going on, literally I haven't thought about it," Loeffler said. "It's day-to-day. I'm hoping our tests keep going the way that they are.
"The one thing this has taught me is to focus on the day and what you can control."
After Wednesday's game, the Falcons' next road game is scheduled for Nov. 28 at Ohio University. The Falcons are slated to play Dec. 5 at Akron.
Bowling Green's original schedule was also fairly light on travel. BG was supposed to play two Big Ten teams — Ohio State and Illinois — as non-conference road games, and did not travel further than Athens in the MAC.
While travel won't be a worry, Loeffler said keeping the season moving with the pandemic ongoing is his biggest concern.
"Sure, I think it's a great advantage that we never have to leave the state of Ohio and we never have to get on a plane and all that, but, to be honest with you, I haven't really thought about it," he said last week. "I'm more concerned about how to get to tomorrow without 15, 20 positives."
The last time Bowling Green played six straight games in the state of Ohio, World War II had just ended weeks earlier.
Bowling Green began its 1945 season with a 15-0 victory at Alma (Mich.) College — the Scots' football team now plays in Division III — before playing its remaining six games in the state of Ohio.
The Falcons played only two of seven games at home that season — victories against Central Michigan and Case Institute of Technology (which later merged to become Case Western Reserve) — but played a run of four straight road games at fellow Ohio colleges in Baldwin-Wallace, Miami, Ohio, and Oberlin.
Schedules for Midwestern college football teams, however, were about to change. The Mid-American Conference formed in 1946, and admitted BGSU as a member in 1952.
First Published November 5, 2020, 2:00 p.m.
