You want to play college football for a nationally ranked team? Look into Bowling Green.

The No. 24 Falcons (6-0, 3-0 Mid-American) staged open tryouts last week with 11 starters injured: three offensive linemen, two linebackers, two defensive linemen, two defensive backs, a tight end and a tailback.

‘It’s a real honor to our players and our coaches to be ranked,’ Urban Meyer, the Bowling Green coach, said last week. ‘Now, we need to get back to the task at hand and find enough bodies to go out and play a game Saturday.’

The banged-up body belonging to junior quarterback Josh Harris won that game, 48-45, in overtime against Western Michigan with a 5-yard tuck-and-truck.

Commence pig piling.

‘I was yelling and screaming for them to get off me,’ Harris, who played through a strained knee ligament, told writers. ‘I didn’t know when it was going to end. There were people coming, and then the team, and then it got heavy because the fans came.’

The fans have been coming all season. Two years ago, Bowling Green finished 2-9 and averaged 8,464 fans, only 1,200 of them students. Last season, the Falcons went 8-3 — their six-game turnaround the best in Division I — and attendance more than doubled, to 17,812. This season, 18,226 are turning out, on average, to 30,559-seat Doyt Perry Stadium, among them 6,000 students. Student tickets for sideline seating remain free, while the average adult seat costs $12, cheapest among Top 25 teams, according to a Bowling Green Athletic Department survey.

Meyer — previously a receivers coach at Notre Dame — along with Athletics Director Paul Krebs, not only changed the outcome of games but the culture in Bowling Green, Ohio. Consider Meyer’s first impressions of the program, relayed to the Cincinnati Post.

‘The players were not treated and the coaches were not treated like a Division I-A program,’ said Meyer, 38, who played two seasons in the Atlanta Braves minor-league system. ‘The locker room downstairs, I wouldn’t let my dog walk through it. And they fixed it all up. The recruiting budget wasn’t enough. They weren’t able to pay the assistant coaches (enough).

‘Our players never got gear. I don’t want them wearing Penn State stuff around campus. I walked in the weight room when I first got here and guys were wearing Budweiser T-shirts. That all changed. Fast.’

Today, Bowling Green leads the country in scoring with 49.3 points per game and stands as the only team to average better than 240 yards passing and rushing. Since Harris took over as starter last season, Bowling Green is 9-0. In that span, he’s thrown for 2,129 yards and 18 touchdowns (with six interceptions) while rushing for 853 and 17, respectively. On Oct. 14, CBS Sportsline profiled Harris as a Heisman contender.

This weekend, he leads the undefeated Falcons against Ball State. A Bowling Green News poll found that 92 percent of the respondents believe the Falcons will win. More telling, however, is that zero answered ‘Could Care Less.’

A national ranking for the first time since December 1985 can produce such unbridled hope. Eight new walk-ons — three DBs, two LBs, a DL, a WR and a kicker — yet to be assigned numbers could tell you that.

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All OK

Iowa State, a team churning out 432 yards of offense per game until Saturday, gained four yards in the first half vs. Oklahoma. The No. 2 Sooners (7-0) rolled to 225 yards while opening a 35-0 halftime lead in a 49-3 dismantling of the Cyclones, who dropped from No. 9 to 17. Iowa State’s 60 yards of total offense were the fourth-fewest in school history.

‘It never seemed it would end,’ Iowa State coach Dan McCarney said.

Since 1962, ISU is 1-35-1 against Oklahoma and 0-47-2 against top-5 teams. No further Heisman Trophy pressure is on ISU QB Seneca Wallace, last week’s Heisman frontrunner, today an afterthought at best. Wallace completed one pass in the first half and 4 of 22 total for 43 yards and three picks.

‘I don’t give a hoot about the Heisman,’ Wallace told reporters following the game. ‘If it damages it, it damages it. Who cares?’

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This and that

The season’s first Bowl Championship Series standings, released Monday, deviate from the AP Top 25, suggesting that there again may be considerable debate about revisions to the BCS. The system remains unlikely to change until ABC’s seven-year, $525-million contract with the BCS expires following the 2005-2006 season. Miami, tops in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls, trails Oklahoma for tops in the BCS. Third in the BCS and nipping at Miami is sixth-ranked Notre Dame. Third-ranked Virginia Tech is fourth in the BCS. Fifth-ranked Georgia places fifth. Conceivably, Miami could find itself uninvited to the national championship game if OU and ND run the table because of the Hurricanes’ weaker schedule. Imagine the reigning national champs, unable to defend their title despite no losses since September 2000. … How about Boise State (6-1, 3-0 WAC) putting up 27 points on Fresno State in a span of 5:52 of the fourth quarter? Boise’s final two scores, a 43-yard pass and 23-yard interception return, accounted for the final points in a 67-21 blowout in which the team totaled 688 yards of offense. QB Ryan Dinwiddie completed 19 of 22 for 406 yards and five TDs. … Boise’s 31 first downs were 26 more than Iowa State managed. … Arkansas coach Houston Nutt booted DT Jermaine Brooks from the team Wednesday after police discovered seven-and-a-half pounds of marijuana in his home late Tuesday night. According to the Associated Press, police also seized $16,841, handguns, rifles and drug paraphernalia. Instead of facing Eli Manning and Ole Miss this week, Brooks stares down a litany of reported charges: illegal delivery of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver, simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms and possession of drug paraphernalia. … Michigan is 5 of 14 on field goals this season. … BYU, that juggernaut that hung a 42-spot on Syracuse in August, has scored 12 points combined in its last two games vs. UNLV (2-4) and No. 22 Air Force. … No. 23 Arizona State (6-2) and No. 25 Minnesota (7-1) debuted in the AP Poll. … Ole Miss and Washington, formerly No. 21 and 22, respectively, dropped from the Top 25. … This week, CBS Sportsline ranks Syracuse No. 107 of 117 teams.

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Heisman watch

Wallace imploded. Florida’s Rex Grossman’s been imploding for two months now. Ohio State’s Maurice Clarett is too immature and too likely to bolt for the NFL to curry enough favor with voters. Miami’s Ken Dorsey’s not the best player in his own backfield. His teammate, Willis McGahee, isn’t 32-1 as a starter. (Basically, Dorsey and McGahee cancel each other out). No one east of Boulder, Colo., knows about Oregon’s Onterrio Smith.

So, Byron Leftwich regains lead horse status. The Marshall quarterback ranks fourth in the country in passing yards (2,314) and TD passes (17 touchdowns) against five interceptions. In his lone loss, to No. 3 Virginia Tech, Leftwich threw for 406 yards and three touchdowns. His receivers dropped two more.

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Line of the week

Courtesy of yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, which handed out midseason awards for best and worst.

‘Worst state: Illinois. Northwestern, Illinois, the Bears and Northern Illinois are a combined 11-17. Sorry to lump you in with those mutts, (Northern Illinois). Your 42-41 victory over Wake Forest was the state’s most impressive victory so far, although losing to Western Illinois may have dimmed the afterglow slightly.’

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V.I.P. M.I.A.

RB Musa Smith, WR Fred Gibson, OT Jon Stinchcomb, Georgia: All three underwent surgery Tuesday. Smith (broken left thumb) leads fifth-ranked Georgia with 614 rushing yards; Gibson (left thumb ligament damage) averages 16.4 yards per catch; and the 6-foot-6 Stinchcomb (left knee cartilage damage) is one of the nation’s premiere offensive linemen.

WR Lee Evans, Wisconsin: Initially, Evans expected to miss one month this season rehabbing a left ACL tear sustained during the April spring game. Monday, Badger coach Barry Alvarez announced that Evans, who last year established a Big 10 single-season receiving record with 1,545 yards, will not play this year.

QB Darian Durant, North Carolina: Durant broke the thumb of his right, throwing hand in a 37-27 loss to Virginia last Saturday and needed surgery Monday. A sophomore who guided UNC (2-5) to a come-from-behind win in Syracuse’s home opener, Durant has tossed for 1,861 yards and 15 touchdowns. He will miss the remainder of the season.

Published on October 23, 2002 at 12:00 pm