What was Blackney-era Bowling Green football like?

BowlingGreen80 · Post by **BowlingGreen80** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:49 pm

I had a corporate mixer last week with a guy who played in the Blackney era. I won't say his name, but he played OL during the 90's - full scholarship and he told me some interesting stories.

I became a BG fan in the Omar Jacobs era and with that I missed the entire 90's era of football, but looking back, it didn't seem like they were the bottom dwellers of the conference like Kent and Northern Illinois were for awhile. Notably, the won a few titles earlier in the era and they actually took down Marshall in 1998.

So two questions:

1. What was Blackney like as a coach and a person? His temperament? What was his coaching staff like?
2. Was attendence better in 1995-2000 era? Were students more excited about BG football back then? What was the stadium like?
3. Did they recruit good athletes? Or - did they recruit decent athletes and make them better?

Any other info would be great. thanks!

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:06 pm

Really good early...disciplined team, worked hard, very focused. The Perry Field House was built in 94ish...giving BG the first indoor facility in the MAC IIRC. The 1994 team was really good...as good a team as I recall at BG. Then the fat punter happened and things changed. That and the OSU job didn't look like it was coming open for awhile. Team seemed less disciplined and focused. The talent was there...didn't seemed to be developed though. were some rumblings about behavioral issues off the field that mostly got swept under the rug throughout. Akili Hutchinson being an exception...

After 1995...up and down...seemed to be a lot of 3-4 game win streaks followed by 3-4 game losing streaks. Things pretty much went to hell in 2000 when we became the first D1 team to lose to Buffalo. Other than the Perry Field House...facilities were crap. Probably 1/3 of the HS in Ohio had better weight rooms and the training room was a joke.

Meyer took Blackney's guys and went 8-3 after Blackney had gone 2-9. That should tell you volumes about where Blackney had trhe program at the end.

BowlingGreen80 · Post by **BowlingGreen80** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:32 pm

Flipper wrote:Really good early...disciplined team, worked hard, very focused. The Perry Field House was built in 94ish...giving BG the first indoor facility in the MAC IIRC. The 1994 team was really good...as good a team as I recall at BG. Then the fat punter happened and things changed. That and the OSU job didn't look like it was coming open for awhile. Team seemed less disciplined and focused. The talent was there...didn't seemed to be developed though. were some rumblings about behavioral issues off the field that mostly got swept under the rug throughout. Akili Hutchinson being an exception...

After 1995...up and down...seemed to be a lot of 3-4 game win streaks followed by 3-4 game losing streaks. Things pretty much went to hell in 2000 when we became the first D1 team to lose to Buffalo. Other than the Perry Field House...facilities were crap. Probably 1/3 of the HS in Ohio had better weight rooms and the training room was a joke.

Meyer took Blackney's guys and went 8-3 after Blackney had gone 2-9. That should tell you volumes about where Blackney had trhe program at the end.

Awesome post. Thanks!

transfer2BGSU · Post by **transfer2BGSU** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 6:37 pm

I had to look up Akili Hitchinson and ended up finding this edition of the BG News

http://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewco ... xt=bg-news" target="_blank

Take a look at the bottom right ad on page 3.

And the list of bands playing at the Black Swamp festival that weekend is on page 6 (right side-halfway down the page or so).

Finally for the Clowns fans - an article about Kevin Mack deciding not to retire after all is on page 12.

'87Alum would love this!

Class of 61 · Post by **Class of 61** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 8:32 pm

Something that i was told back then was about the tough situation Blackney was in. His wife had, i think, MS, and was in need of pretty much full time care. With a young family to care for, as well as his wife's health issues had to take a toll on him. Going to guess this was at least a contibuting factor to the decline.

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 9:16 pm

Class of 61 wrote:Something that i was told back then was about the tough situation Blackney was in. His wife had, i think, MS, and was in need of pretty much full time care. With a young family to care for, as well as his wife's health issues had to take a toll on him. Going to guess this was at least a contibuting factor to the decline.

Very true, Den. Gary and his wife had 4 kids he was raising while his wife needed full time care. Lauretta suffered a basilar artery aneurysm while at a bowling alley in 1986, I think. We all know how much time football coaches are in the office and I think he just wore down. His first 4 years, 1991-1994, were AMAZING. 36-8-2...2 MAC titles and should have been 3. Those 8 losses? At WVU (24-17) in '91, at OSU (17-7) and at Wisconsin (39-18) in '92. Losses in '93 were at Va Tech (33-16), at Navy (27-20) and at CMU (17-15). 1994, one of THEE best BG teams ever, we lost at NC State in the opener, 20-15, and the fat punter game to CMU 36-33. His worst loss in 4 years was 39-18 at Wisky. He beat tsun AND MiAudi 4 years in a row....8-0 against our biggest rivals. Blackney lost ONE home game in 4 years....ONE!!!

The only other time span outside the Doyt Perry years that can compete with '91-91 is 2001-2004, imo. In 1995, we were 5-6 and kept falling every year until he stepped down after the Buffalo loss in 2000. Coach Blackney is a classy guy and one of my fave BG football coaches even though the last half of his career at BG he was 24-42. His teams from 91-94 were so damn good.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:15 pm

I vaguely remember attending some games as a kid in the early Blackney era but I didn't follow closely until I left hs and got to BG. So most of my memories of the Blackney era are of the final 3 seasons.

I had the [mis]fortune of working with many of the football players of this era. They were, as a whole, the most lazy entitled worthless human beings I have ever met in my life. To this day I've never met a group of people with as little ambition than the bulk of those guys I met/worked with. There were some good dudes in there,certainly, but overwhelmingly they were just lazy. Guys just sleeping on the couch when they were supposed to be working. Guys that took their truck back to their apartment to hang out rather than go to the job site. Regularly bragging about skipping workouts, or signing in at the weight room but not actually performing the lifts.

Day after day I'd work with these people and just shake my head saying how easy it was to believe they formed an awful football team.

This is why in urbs first year we ended up with somewhere closer to only 50 guys on scholarship. He wouldn't put up with it and ran these types off. I heard it first hand from a lineman on the team how appalled urb was when he arrived we had only one lineman (on either side of the ball) that could bench 400...On a division 1 team.

I don't know if those later years of Blackney they were failing to properly recruit or Target the right types of players. Or perhaps they had a drive until they got sucked into the culture. I really don't know, but I don't doubt at all that this was a major issue. Unsurprisingly the guys I worked with that WERE good, hardworking co-workers were also the ones that were either productive in Blackney era or went on to good things under Urban. Guys like Rob Fehrman, Gibby, Mazur, Mike Malone, etc. All quality dudes who put in pretty good football careers as well.

BowlingGreen80 · Post by **BowlingGreen80** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 9:56 am

I remember reading all about Bowling Green's "Black Wednesday" which sort of highlights how bad the morale was at the end of 2000. Here is a great article all about it....apparently Urban's workouts were some sort of next-level hell:

https://www.landof10.com/ohio-state/bud ... ing-career" target="_blank

It strikes me as odd that someone like Blackney could have such great success (that he actually built, not inherited) and then lose it all. Surely the ability to be a good coach and have some sort of system/program that kids can buy into is something of a talent and it's weird that it can fall off. From what I understand from the OL that I spoke to who played on the 1992-96 teams, Blackney was a bit of a hard ass to his players, not some sort of pushover coach. So, it's hard to imagine that he tolerated the lazy, entitled types that Hammb speaks of (and I don't doubt his post at all).

I'd love to watch a few of these older games, but there is so little of that 1990-2000 era on YouTube.

Well, this is sort of neat and the quality is pretty nice for it being 1994: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ict1Qrwuy_4" target="_blank

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 11:04 am

Reading through that BG News was like being in a time warp. Really brings back the memories. One thing that that I was appalled to see was that Satan Tortilla was not on the band list for the Black Swamp fest. I wonder how many folks will know that reference.

On the down side, the whole Akili Hutchinson was extremely sad on many levels. In my opinion, he was probably the most athletically talented guy on the team with his combination of speed, strength and aggressiveness. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to control himself and it cost him, his team and the people he victimized. He got into a fight on the sidelines in the OSU game in '92 and got kicked out of the game. That defense was noticeably missing something when he wasn't in there. His ability reminds me a little of Gabe Martin before Gabe got hurt, except Akili had a mean streak. IIRC, I think he also wore jersey #11.

Thanks for posting, Transfer.

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 11:39 am

The Key is also online....that's fun to look through

JohnFloyd4Life · Post by **JohnFloyd4Life** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 11:49 am

I clicked on the article and was reminded of Tommy Breitigam's existence. At Fotown Tommy was the most dominant high school D lineman I have ever seen. Unblockable.

Schadenfreude · Post by **Schadenfreude** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 3:00 pm

Beaker wrote:Satan Tortilla was not on the band list for the Black Swamp fest. I wonder how many folks will know that reference.

I do.

As for the Blackney era: The 1995 season started with such promise. They had a really raucous crowd of 22,222 at Perry Stadium for the Thursday night opener against Louisiana Tech. But then Ryan Henry -- profiled as an all-American candidate in USA Today a few days before -- threw six interceptions and what seemed like it would be another run at a MAC title fell apart. The team won at Missouri the next week, but overall the 1995 Falcons never lived up to all the hype. I think they finished 5-6, and that's when the long slide started.

As for whether the crowds bigger back then: Probably a bit, but I think that has less to do with Bowling Green specifically and more the world we live in today. Crowds are not as strong as they used to be across college football and it isn't entirely clear why.

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Fri Mar 31, 2017 3:14 pm

Yeah...I think the crowds were bigger. 1994 averaged something like 22-25k IIRC. Schad mentioning all that stuff about Ryan Henry getting profiled in USA Today as a Heisman guy and the team getting some pub reminds me of Omar in 2005...Lots of preseason hype and then Boise State happened and the team lost a lot of luster before Omar got hurt and WMU and Akron beat us at home

BowlingGreen80 · Post by **BowlingGreen80** » Sat Apr 01, 2017 10:33 am

Flipper wrote:Yeah...I think the crowds were bigger. 1994 averaged something like 22-25k IIRC. Schad mentioning all that stuff about Ryan Henry getting profiled in USA Today as a Heisman guy and the team getting some pub reminds me of Omar in 2005...Lots of preseason hype and then Boise State happened and the team lost a lot of luster before Omar got hurt and WMU and Akron beat us at home

OK I need to correct myself. I can't believe I forgot this but I do remember watching a Bowling Green game on "SportsChannel" back in 1997. Maybe it was Miami (OH) at home but the stadium looked near capacity.

BowlingGreen80 · Post by **BowlingGreen80** » Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:48 am

Bumping this post one last time. I did some attendance digging in regards to the last 4 years of the Blackney era. As you can see, MAJOR decline after 1997 in terms of crowd support. Very abysmal in 2000, as expected. In bold are the worst and best attended games.

1997
Miami (OH) - Attendance - 20,493
Northern Illinois - Attendance - 17,148
Western Michigan - Attendance - 18,843
Toledo Attendance - 22,695

1998
Central Florida- Attendance - 15,824
Ohio - Attendance - 9,014
Kent - Attendance - 9,308
Marshall - Attendance - 11,237
Akron - Attendance - 14,273

1999
Tennessee Tech - Attendance - 7,947
Toledo - Attendance - 23,918
Miami - Attendance - 10,298
Central Michigan - Attendance - 8,573
Ball State - Attendance - 6,450

2000
Pittsburgh - 11,533
Akron - 8,008 (Homecoming!?)
Eastern Michigan - Attendance 8,042
Marshall - Attendance - 8,091
Ohio - Attendance 6,646

What was Blackney-era Bowling Green football like?

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Look at this old BG News

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