When football coach Scot Loeffler arrived at Bowling Green State University six years ago, the focus was on rebuilding the program, and that could be considered an understatement.

Loeffler inherited one of the nation’s biggest rebuilding projects as the BGSU offense and defense both ranked nearly last in the nation in both offensive and defensive production the season before his arrival.

The gains during Loeffler’s tenure started to take root in 2021 and by 2022 Bowling Green was back in a bowl game for the first time since 2015 as the Falcons took part in the Quick Lane Bowl.

The 2023 season marked another successful campaign under Loeffler’s leadership, as the Falcons made impressive strides.

BGSU secured a spot in the Quick Lane Bowl for the second consecutive year, facing off against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. This achievement marked the first time BGSU had participated in back-to-back bowl games since their four-year streak from 2012 to 2015.

BGSU was the only school in the nation to improve from 2020 to 2021 with an increase of four wins, then an increase of two wins from 2021 to 2022 and one win from 2022 to 2023, finishing 7-6 last year.

In 2023, BGSU led the nation with 28 takeaways, including four forced turnovers against the eventual national champion Michigan, who had only eight turnovers throughout the season. These three interceptions accounted for half of the six total offensive turnovers Michigan yielded all season.

This year, Bowling Green has a veteran-laden squad led by 30 seniors. Comparing those early years to this year’s team is like night and day.

“If you were out here a few years ago it was a clown show,” Loeffler said. “We’re starting to look like a football team.

“For the first time we’ve got depth at a lot of positions,” Loeffler continued. “For the first time, we have age. We’re old, we have 30 seniors. The big thing that we need to continue to do is focus on the day.

“I’m convinced that the championship teams that I have been a part of and my staff has been a part of, it’s the day-in, day-out exceptional habits, exceptional actions, exceptional mindset, and we’ve got to focus day-to-day on that championship type of habit and mindset.

“If we do that and we win the war within to stay selfless and worry about the team, we are going to have a good football team.”

Chasing Miami and Toledo

The defending champion Miami RedHawks have been selected as favorites to win both the regular season crown and Mid-American Conference football championship game title in the coaches’ preseason poll, Toledo is second, and BGSU is tied with Northern Illinois for third.

Loeffler says with an more experienced squad he can push his athletes to their limits, but the coaches still have to be smart about it.

“We’ve got to push but we can’t be stupid. I honestly believe when you have a veteran team, that is you take the foot off the gas it hurts you,” Loeffler said. “We are going to keep on the gas, we have to have intelligence, we have to know when enough is enough.

“We believe that we are tough, and in order to be tough you have to practice tough. That just doesn’t happen. We’re going to practice really hard but we’re going to have some intelligence with it.”

Bowling Green will rely on the backfield tandem of All-MAC running back Terion Stewart and veteran quarterback Connor Bazelak.

Despite missing four games with injury, Stewart finished the year fourth in the nation with 78 broken tackles, tied for 25th in the nation with 6.1 yards per rush and his 4.81 yards per rush after contact ranked second in the nation among those with at least 100 rushing attempts.

“I think he’s done a great job with maturing,” Loeffler said. “The one thing with Terion is he brings the juice and energy to practice. He loves football and he brings it every day and the players feed off his energy. I really like how his enthusiasm is so contagious with our team.”

Unlike when Loeffler came on board six years ago, this will be a team not afraid to run the football.

“We’re going to run the ball,” Loeffler said. “We’re on track. Come hell or high water, we are going to run the ball.”

Then there’s the air attack

Bazelak, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound senior, came to BGSU in 2023 after appearing 34 career games with 29 career starts between Missouri (three years) and Indiana (one year). He enters 2024 with 9,301 career passing yards, 48 touchdowns and a 61.9 completion percentage for his career.

Last year, Bazelak started 11 of BGSU’s 13 games, missing the Michigan and Buffalo games with an injury. He finished the season with 1,935 yards passing and 12 touchdowns, and he accomplished that still banged up from injuries.

Bazelak says it is even better now that he gets a second year in the Falcons’ system.

“It’s awesome going into year two and knowing all the plays,” Bazelak said. “When we install plays, I don’t have to spend my time learning them.

“I can spend more time getting my knee right, my body right, taking care of my arm, and stuff like that, so it’s a big health thing. Also, I can help the new guys — help other quarterbacks, help the new receivers out.”

Bazelak will share QB duties with senior Cam Orth, who is also recovering from injuries, with plays specially designed for each. You will likely see Bazelak behind center on throwing downs, and Orth behind center on short yardage plays.

Either way, Loeffler says the key will be to keep both healthy. It helped that both took the spring session off to rehab, allowing redshirt freshman quarterback Lucian Anderson to get reps. However, this summer Bazelak has been getting his share of reps with his receiving corps.

“I think we were able to establish a lot of rhythm and tempo with the wide-outs in June because you can throw in the outside air and all of that other stuff, so I felt decent with that,” Loeffler said.

“We need to get Connor and Cam completely 100% healthy. They can both play right now, no question about it, but over this next month they are going to get better and better with their health.

“It was great to have Lucian out here getting a ton of reps. Of course, you never would have wanted to see Connor and Com not play spring and have a little bit more limited roles then, but this is a blessing in disguise when it comes to developing Lucian.”

BOWLING GREEN FALCONS SCHEDULE

Thur., Aug. 29 FORDHAM, 7 p.m.

Sat., Sept. 7 @ Penn State, noon

Sat., Sept. 21 @ Texas A&M, 7:30 p.m.

Sat., Sept. 28 OLD DOMINION, 5 p.m.

Sat., Oct. 5 @ Akron, TBA

Sat., Oct. 12 NORTHERN ILLINOIS, TBA

Sat., Oct. 19 KENT STATE, TBA

Sat., Oct. 26 @ Toledo, TBA

Tues., Nov. 5 @ Central Mcihigan, 7:30 or 8 p.m.

Tues., Nov. 12 WESTERN MICHIGAN, 7 p.m.

Sat., Nov. 23 @ Ball State, TBA

Fri., Nov. 29 MIAMI, noon

Sat., Dec. 7 MAC Championsip @ Ford Field, noon