BOWLING GREEN — Some successful creations are constructed overnight, like a Spirit Halloween store or Indiana football.

Other builds take a little longer.

For instance, Rome or the Egyptian pyramids or … Bowling Green as a Mid-American Conference championship contender.

All that ultimately matters is the job is done well.

The Falcons may have taken a few back roads on the long way to this tantalizing intersection, but let us appreciate them just the same.

They are no longer coming.

In the sense that Scot Loeffler has assembled a program of which this community can be proud — and one that looks tough, talented, and, at last, consistent enough to win the league — they have arrived.

On a chilled Tuesday night billed as a Blackout — maybe that’s why only 8,461 fans could find Doyt Perry Stadium — Bowling Green very much kept the lights on in its conference title pursuit with a 31-13 dusting of Western Michigan.

In the showdown of the MAC season to date, the first-place Falcons (6-4, 5-1) retained control of their destiny with their most controlling league victory.

I wrote a few weeks ago that Bowling Green’s win at Toledo was the biggest of the Loeffler era. This one was right there, featuring steak and sizzle, the home team bullying the Broncos (5-5, 4-2) up front and its stars taking it from there.

Bowling Green joined Ohio State as just the second team to limit Western Michigan’s powerhouse offense to less than 100 yards rushing while the offense did its thing, led by name-taking running back Terion Stewart (15 carries, 150 yards) and one of the top combinations in the nation.

Name three better football batteries than Connor Bazelak to tight end Harold Fannin, Jr., the latter of whom just keeps making the spectacular look, well …

“He played like normal,” Loeffler said after Fannin pulled in 10 catches for 137 yards and two touchdowns despite being the focus of another defense. “Pretty good.”

In any case, Fannin has my first-team vote for Associated Press All-American.

And some pretty exciting opportunities are in front of Bowling Green, too.

“This is what we wanted,” said Loeffler, who has steadily — if not always linearly — built toward a potential breakthrough sixth season. “We want to play meaningful football games, and each one the stakes get higher, which is really good and fun. Now let's go to work really hard and be good teammates, love each other and do the right things … and find a way to become 1-0 next week.”

The emotions of the night made the latest win all the sweeter.

Think back to the second quarter.

Western Michigan went ahead 7-3 with a pounding eight-minute touchdown drive, got the ball right back on a bobbled pooch kick, and then … none of that mattered.

On the kick, Bam Booker — the sophomore defensive lineman who dropped the ball — did not get up.

We soon saw why.

The replays were horrifying, showing Booker stumbling forward, only to be leveled by the headfirst dive of a Western Michigan safety charging full speed ahead.

It was as brutal of a hit on a defenseless opponent as you’ll ever see and appeared to be the very definition of targeting. That it was not even reviewed felt as egregious as it did insignificant.

The real concern was for Booker, who lay motionless on the field. A stretcher came out. Players on both sides kneeled in prayer.

“That's the worst feeling in the world,” Loeffler said.

It was only after nine minutes that cheers pierced the eerie quiet as paramedics wheeled Booker to a waiting ambulance and the injured Falcon gave a thumbs up.

Fortunately, Loeffler said the early reports tracked with the good news he later received: Booker will be OK.

“When I got out there, it wasn't good,” he said. “But by the time they got him off there, you knew it wasn't a neck. He was moving. So to be able to come to the sideline — those kids love Bam — to be able to come to the sideline and tell those kids that he's going to be OK, that was huge. Thank the good Lord.”

From that moment, with Booker at the front of mind, everything changed.

“You wanted to go out there and show out for him,” linebacker Brock Horne said.

Bowling Green did just that.

If you blinked after the delay, here’s what you might have missed.

BG forced a three-and-out, then scythed down the field — its six-play, 84-yard touchdown drive naturally punctuated by a 25-yard toss from Bazelak to Fannin — and kept coming. Cornerback Jacorey Benjamin intercepted Western Michigan’s Hayden Wolff on the very next play from scrimmage and the Falcons promptly punched in another score.

In a little more than four minutes of game time, we went from Western ahead and with the ball in Bowling Green territory to the Falcons leading 17-7.

From zero to the Autobahn.

Just in time, a Bowling Green team in the conference driver’s seat arrived to the thick of the late-November mix. 

We’ll see what happens next. But, if you’re a BG fan, this is starting to get pretty fun, isn’t it?

First Published November 13, 2024, 5:14 a.m.