Bowling Green headed to 3rd-straight MAC Championship Game
Bowling Green is going to Detroit in December for the third-straight year.
The Falcons clinched a berth in the MAC Championship Game Wednesday night with a 41-27 win over Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. Bowling Green, 8-2, has a three-game lead on every other team in the MAC East with two games to play thanks to Buffalo’s loss to Northern Illinois on Wednesday.
The Falcons jumped out to a 14-3 lead early against the Broncos but quickly relinquished it after two-straight WMU scores. The 17-14 lead was WMU’s last lead of the night.
After WMU tied the game at 27 early in the third quarter, Travis Greene scored his second and third touchdowns of the night. A 26-yard run gave Bowling Green a 34-27 lead and a five-yard run later in the third provided the winning margin.
Greene finished with 23 carries for 167 yards while Matt Johnson “only” had 269 passing yards. It was Johnson’s lowest passing output of the season.
The game against the Broncos could be a preview for the MAC title game. The loss was Western Michigan’s first of the year in the MAC and drops the Broncos to a three-way tie for first in the West with Northern Illinois and Toledo. Those two teams are the final two remaining on WMU’s schedule.
Or, the MAC title game could be the rubber match in a best-of-three series between BGSU and NIU. The Huskies and Falcons have split the last two years and NIU currently has the head-to-head tiebreaker over Toledo thanks to an upset win last week.
The loss dropped Toledo from the ranks of the unbeaten and likely dropped the MAC from any New Year’s Six consideration. Yes, Bowling Green has wins over Maryland and Purdue and could finish the season 11-2 if it wins the MAC. But one of its two losses on the season came to Memphis, a team in the AAC that’s fighting with Navy and Houston for the right to be the highest-ranked team from the conference in the College Football Playoff rankings. While Bowling Green is fun to watch and would be an intriguing matchup in a big bowl game, the 44-41 loss to the Tigers prevents any realistic thought of it happening.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
