CLEVELAND — The longest construction project in world history was the Great Wall of China, which took a cool 2,000 years to complete.
The second longest? Contrary to belief, it is not the rebuild of Bowling Green State University football.
Not yet, at least.
For an update on the timetable, I asked the program’s foreman.
“We’re close,” Falcons coach Scot Loeffler said Tuesday here at Mid-American Conference media day.
How close?
That’s the big question as Loeffler and the Falcons set off on what will be a telling season.
All along, Loeffler, 47, has touted a vision modeled after the blueprint of former BG coach Dave Clawson, who expertly shepherded the Falcons through a similarly full-blown rebuild from 2009 to 2013.
And, so far, it has generally gone to plan. In his first three years, Bowling Green laid a lot of foundational bricks off the field and even more eggs on it. The Falcons endured their worst three-season stretch in program history (7-22), which itself followed the previous worst three-season stretch in program history (9-27).
“We said Year 1 we were going to stink, and we did,” Loeffler said. “Year 2 we were going to stink worse, and we did. Year 3, we would sometimes be really good and sometimes stink.”
Now ...
With the harvest of three full recruiting classes — and BG returning a national-best 92 percent of its production — the idea is for Loeffler to have the Falcons in a bowl this year and contending for a MAC championship next year. Remember, Clawson won eight games in his fourth year and the league title in his fifth.
“This is just what Dave said: Year 4 you’ll be a competitive football team,” Loeffler said. “Will you be right where you want to be? I don’t know. And then Year 5, you go find a way to win a championship. We’re following the model and I know we feel — and our players feel — much better and much more confident about where we are than we have.”
We’ll see.
For better or worse, the jury on Loeffler very much remains out.
Tell me that Bowling Green turns the corner this season, or warn me that Loeffler executing the architectural renderings of Clawson — now in his ninth season of a successful run at Wake Forest — will prove a lot easier said than done, and I would believe either scenario.
To date, all we know is Loeffler has a sound plan, which is to do exactly the opposite of the last guy.
If we must revisit the past in the name of context, Bowling Green fans will recall the clown show Loeffler inherited.
In December, 2015, former AD Chris Kingston hired a career Texas high school coach with three years of college experience — none as a coordinator — who had never set foot in Ohio. That coach, Mike Jinks, then assembled a staff that included seven first-time Division I coaches, none with Ohio ties, either, and so began the road to nowhere.
By the end, 30 scholarship players remained from Jinks’ three scattershot recruiting classes, the last of which featured 13 of 24 recruits from outside of a 450-mile radius.
The program was so haphazardly burned to the ground that Bowling Green was reportedly cited for insurance fraud.
Loeffler thought back this week to his first days on the job.
“I remember shutting my office door and literally going, ‘What did I just do?’” he said.
What he did, though, was go to work, hiring a veteran staff with Ohio ties and beating a path to nearby recruits. By my count, his four classes include 37 Ohioans and more than 60 prep prospects from inside of four hours.
Say what you will about Loeffler, but there’s a method to the MACtion, and his program is moving forward. In 2020, the Falcons didn’t once hold a lead all season. In 2021, a team that counted 70 players with freshmen eligibility stunned Minnesota, held its own more often than not — BG was 4-8 straight up but 8-4 against the spread — and was fourth in the MAC in total defense (374 yards per game).
We can all see the progress.
But Loeffler isn’t naive. He knows there’s only so much patience to go around.
At some point, it becomes time for the process to yield real results, and, while I don’t mean to sound the alarm, Loeffler is at a crossroads that history tells us separates the successful coaches from the pretenders.
There have been four MAC coaches in the last quarter century who did not have a six-win season in their first four years and kept their jobs, including Mike Neu, who is entering his seventh season at Ball State.
Only Neu rewarded the faith (maybe), turning in a seven-win aberration during the pandemic year before returning to his losing ways last season. The other three coaches held on for a combined seven more seasons, going 31-49.
Point is, a coach either has it or he doesn’t, and Loeffler — in the second-to-last year of his contract — needs to prove he’s the man for the job.
I don’t know what that needs to look like. This season is tricky, because BG got little luck with a schedule that includes nonconference games against UCLA, Mississippi State, and Marshall, and crossover contests against three of the top four teams in the MAC West (Toledo, Central Michigan, and Western Michigan).
But, at least, the Falcons need to be rapping on the door of their first bowl game since 2015.
Loeffler has 18 returning starters — including third-year starting quarterback Matt McDonald — and, in what can be viewed either as a sign of desperation or a reflection of the itinerant times, 13 incoming transfers to fill the gaps where needed.
We’ll keep our mind open.
And Loeffler will keep his foot hard on the gas.
“We've worked our tail off to get things going in the right direction,” he said. “Are we perfect yet? No, but I know we’re going to be competitive this year, and I know we’re going to have a chance each week, especially in the Mid-American Conference. We’re going to give ourselves a chance. That’s all you can ask for. ... We’re close.”
And, too close for comfort or not, getting closer.
First Published July 27, 2022, 7:35 p.m.
