![]() workout, they had a feeling something bad was about to happen. When the Bowling Green players arrived for the 5 a.m. What if I told you it all started with trash cans? In fact, the 2001 Falcons launched the career of Meyer, Ohio State coach and a three-time national champ whose face adorns the Mount Rushmore of modern college football. It made Meyer not just the MAC coach of the year but a hot commodity in coaching circles. A 2-9 became an 8-3 team, one that posted wins against three power-conference foes and drubbed its heated rival. ![]() ![]() “The course of the rest of our lives depended on that job, really.” We had no idea what kind of program he could put together. We had no idea what kind of leaders we’d be. “You might only have that one chance to prove yourself as a head coach. “That could have been a one-shot deal,” his wife Shelley recently told. There had to be even more doubts when he ruled with an iron fist early on in his tenure, forcing a program that had grown lax in its work ethic to bend to his will, chasing off some of his starters and veterans along the way. Yes, he had developed a reputation already as a demanding sort, the kind of guy who ran blocking drills so hard as a receivers coach at Notre Dame that they earned the nickname “ Vietnam.”īut no one knew for sure if this guy had what it took to win as the head honcho. Sure, Meyer had coached under Lou Holtz, Bob Davie and Earle Bruce. ![]() There was no guarantee the hard-charging, famously intense 37-year-old named after a pope would survive let alone thrive in charge of a program, even one as tradition-rich yet victory-starved as Bowling Green. Now nationally renowned, a veritable college football legend known in every corner of the state from Ashtabula to Zanesville and probably from Andorra to Zanzibar too, Meyer was in his first season as a head coach. That first team nearly did the impossible, playing above its skill level and using sheer will to capture those eight wins. The way things were done in the Mid-American Conference at the time, that wasn’t enough to qualify for postseason play.īut dig a little deeper and the story becomes more clear. That’s right, the 2001 Falcons were 8-3 on the year, certainly a good season but not a great one by many measures. “What if I told you,” the ever-serious voiceover would intone, “that a team that didn’t even make a bowl game changed college football history?” If ESPN ever wanted to make a “30 for 30” on the 2001 Bowling Green football team – and just about everyone involved on that team agrees it’s a hell of a story – we can already give them the tagline. ![]()
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