Georgia Tech plays Bowling Green on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium, the Yellow Jackets' first matchup with the Falcons in school history. For an insight into Bowling Green, Toledo Blade writer Nicholas Piotrowicz provided his knowledge of the Falcons. To read more about Bowling Green, read here. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Q: I imagine most Georgia Tech fans know pretty much nothing about this team other than perhaps that Dino Babers (and years before, Urban Meyer) used to coach there. What can you tell us about Bowling Green from a big-picture perspective?
A: Traditionally, it’s been one of the better Group of Five jobs for a coach. BG has a pretty good recruiting base in our corner of Ohio, but the reality of the MAC is that there isn’t much difference between the top program du jour and the 12th-place program. Almost without exception, all of the programs in this league have had at least one huge high and at least one bad low in the past 20 years. BG won the league in 2015, but has just seven wins since.
Q: Are wide receivers Quintin Morris and Scott Miller a strength of the team? Who else should Tech fans watch out for?
A: Certainly. BG has a few guys at wide receiver, especially those two, who probably would be recruited more heavily a second time around. But watch out for Andrew Clair, the No. 1 running back. He’s not especially big or fast, but he breaks a lot of tackles. BG has struggled on the offensive line this year, but he still burned Oregon for more than 100 yards rushing and a receiving touchdown earlier this year.
Q: Where are the Falcons most vulnerable?
Without question — and this will be music to the ears of the Tech offense — it’s stopping the run. BG is dead last in the FBS in rushing defense by a wide margin. Tackling has been poor and they don’t have much depth on the defensive line. Miami was one of the worst run offenses in the country until they played BG last week and ran for 289 yards and won in a blowout. FCS Eastern Kentucky ran for almost 400. It has been a struggle, to say the least.
Q: What’s the interest level in Bowling Green and among alumni in the team?
A: By MAC standards, it’s somewhere in the middle. Bowling Green is a small city and the team hasn’t been especially good lately (and also typically plays on weeknights), so attendance isn’t great. But at least anecdotally, school spirit is higher here than many G5 schools, so a lot of the alums follow the football team, whether casually or ardently.
Q: Just curious. Is there something that drives diehard Bowling Green fans irrationally crazy? Because, you know, Georgia Tech fans aren’t like that at all.
A: Oh, man, it's probably bringing up the old Falcon "LT" logo. This beautiful, vaguely bird-shaped beast went by the wayside in favor of the current logo, and a certain segment of the fanbase acts as if their first-born is being held captive. In case you were wondering if there possibly could be strong feelings about brown-and-orange uniforms, I can confirm there are.
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