Bowling Green Makes College Football History On First Play Of The Eddie George Era
Falcons have taken the season's opening kickoff to the house in back-to-back years.
Bowling Green doesn't get a lot of national attention in the world of college football, but the Falcons sure know how to create top-tier highlights – and get themselves in the record books.
They began their season on Thursday night against Lafayette, marking the start of an era under 1995 Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George, who was hired in March as head coach. As is the case with all teams, Bowling Green probably had a plan for how it wanted the game to start, preferably in a good way.
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Well, that certainly happened in the fastest way possible.
Return man Cameron Pettaway hauled in the opening kickoff and sprinted 98 yards for a score. Not a bad way to start a game, a season, and an era.
Welcome to Bowling Green, Eddie! That play was the catalyst for a 26-7 win for the Falcons.
But here’s the crazy part; that’s not the first time the Falcons have done that in recent memory. Just last year, Justin Pegues ran 100 yards for a house call against Fordham. In fact, he ran down the right side of the formation, just like Pettaway.
Talk about a knack for starting the year with a bang! By doing this, the Falcons became just the second team in college football history to ever have a player run the season-opening kickoff for a touchdown in consecutive years. Barry Sanders did it by himself in 1987 and 1988 for Oklahoma State.
This is the kind of stuff that makes millions of fans come back year after year. Each week, it seems like you see some new record being made, or an upset happens that even experts couldn't predict, or some wild play that blows your mind.
All that to say, that electric feeling that permeates every Saturday for the fall is back – and Bowling Green gave us a great first serving of it.
Man, it's good to have college football back.