BOWLING GREEN — An unexpected addition highlighted a strong signing day class for coach Scot Loeffler and his Bowling Green State University football team.
Quarterback J.T. Kitna, the son of former NFL signal caller Jon Kitna, was among 19 high school seniors who committed to the Falcons during Wednesday’s national signing day. J.T. Kitna was previously committed to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and head coach Trent Dilfer — a Super Bowl champion quarterback with the Baltimore Ravens — but made a change of heart late Tuesday night that Loeffler is certainly thrilled about.
“It was a good surprise. I’ve known Jon for a long time, we’ve stemmed all the way back to our Detroit days,” said Loeffler, who was the Detroit Lions’ quarterbacks coach in 2008 when Jon Kitna was with the team. “It’s a great family.
“... [J.T.] had a lot of high-end interest from a lot of schools. I went down and watched him throw in the wintertime, and I thought he was a very good player. I thought he was a Big Ten kid, to be quite honest with you. He just recently wanted to look at our place, and I thought, to be quite honest with you, it was for down the road if things didn’t work at his last place, if a coaching change, what have not.
“And then lo and behold, we got a call at about 10:30 last night saying I wanted to be a Falcon, and it was a good day for Bowling Green. So it was a positive.”
BGSU, which will be losing a large number of seniors and veterans from the 2024 squad, filled numerous needs with a recruiting class that currently ranks as the fifth-best in the Mid-American Conference, according to 247Sports. It’s the highest since BGSU’s second-ranked 2020 class and an improvement from last year’s seventh-ranked class.
BGSU signed two quarterbacks, two wide receivers, one tight end, and four linemen on offense, along with three safeties, four cornerbacks, and three linemen on defense. Eighteen of the 19 players are three-star recruits, according to 247Sports.
Seven players from Ohio, four from Michigan, two from Texas, and one from Maryland, Florida, North Carolina, New Jersey, Indiana, and Missouri are included.
“We had a really good class last year that we think there will be a bunch of guys that are going to be able to contribute to our team next year. There will be a few guys on this team that I think are talented enough to help us next year,” Loeffler said. “And then obviously, it’s the use of the transfer portal to equal everything out, and this year, just because of, we had so many seniors — we had 30 seniors, 30 graduating — it’ll be the first time that we’ll probably be in the transfer portal a little bit deeper than what we wish.
“That’s just to finish holes, but once we get through this year of transfer portal, we’ll revert right back into our formula being the majority of our team being high school kids.”
Kitna, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound quarterback from Lakota East High School in West Chester, Ohio, chose BGSU over Baylor, Houston, Duke, Indiana, James Madison, Kansas State, Liberty, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Texas Tech, as well as a handful of MAC schools. He initially committed to Houston on Aug. 1, 2023, decommitted a few months later after a coaching change, then verballed to UAB on Aug. 22 before deciding to go with BGSU.
During his senior season, Kitna completed 187 of 316 passes for 2,711 yards and 27 touchdowns while adding 203 rushing yards and four scores on the ground in helping Lakota East (8-4 record) make a seven-win improvement from the 2023 campaign.
BGSU also added quarterback Carsen Melvin (6-3, 205), who tallied 1,950 passing yards, 353 rushing yards, and 26 total touchdowns in helping Westfield High School finish 12-2 and runner-up in the Indiana High School Athletic Association Class 6A playoffs. Wide receivers Dilon Tallie (6-3, 190) from Bowie High School in Arlington, Texas, and DeShaun Lanier (5-11, 175), from Chippewa Valley High School in Mount Clemens, Mich., were among several signees who chose the Falcons over multiple power conference schools. Tallie had 67 catches for 1,200 yards and 15 touchdowns as a senior, while Lanier totaled more than 2,000 receiving yards and 24 touchdowns in his career.
Safety Jahai Johnson, who tied a national record with three kickoff return touchdowns in one game this season for Piscataway High School in New Jersey, along with cornerback Rico Garcia, the younger brother of BGSU wide receiver R.J. Garcia II, were also among the Falcons’ signees. Canton McKinley High School defensive lineman Dior Garner, who had offers from Iowa State, Kansas State, and Oregon State, could be one of the top signees for BGSU, as well.
First Published December 5, 2024, 12:50 a.m.