Overtime!

On our drive to Columbus, OH, we passed by the football stadium at Bowling Green State University. Having lived in Muncie, IN and attending Ball State football games for three seasons, I (Matthew) admittedly have a soft spot for Mid-American Conference football.

 

“When do the Falcons play? We should go if it’s a night game!” As luck would have it, Bowling Green played a 7 P.M. game in Toledo against their in-state rivals.

After a couple of phone calls, and a few emails, we found ourselves with two tickets to the Battle of I-75 between the Bowling Green State University Falcons and the University of Toledo Rockets.

Upon our arrival into Toledo, we made a quick pit stop at the UT Student Bookstore, grabbed a couple t-shirts, made a Superman-esque change in the car, trading out our OSU scarlet and gray for UT yellow and blue.

In front of an energetic, sellout crowd in Glass Bowl Stadium, the Rockets beat their conference and state rivals 27-15.

From the Gameday Guru perspective, a few things can be taken away from the stadium atmosphere at a smaller school.

1. Even though the Glass Bowl is roughly one-third of the size of The Horseshoe at Ohio State, Rockets fans can be just as passionate as the Buckeye faithful.

2. The players’ interaction with the students and crowd gets people excited. The players ran straight to the student section during pregame, which fired everyone up. Before and after big plays, the players would raise their arms and look to the crowd to get the stadium excited, and the fans responded.

3. Having the band set up in the student section, and playing call/response songs with the students and fans before kickoffs and after first downs worked well to get the crowd involved. The volume of the band carried well throughout the stadium, which was also a big plus as far as atmosphere is concerned.

4. Recognizing a military veteran during a timeout always gives the crowd something to cheer about and keeps the energy up in the stadium.  And, in a later timeout, the UT Trivia Question of the Game took a shot at BGSU by asking a question where the answer was “All three of these majors are offered by the University of Toledo, but not Bowling Green,” a clever way to excite the crowd and fuel the rivalry.

Whether there are 100,000 people at the game, or 30,000, the Gameday Guru is always looking for games to go to and stadiums to study, even if that means playing a little bit of overtime!