The Bowling Green fan base might
just turn Ford Field into Perry Stadium North tonight.The Falcons, 10-3, face Pittsburgh, 6-6, in the Little
Caesars Pizza Bowl. Kickoff is at 6 in Detroit’s Ford Field.Over 10,000 Falcon fans are expected to attend
as Bowling Green went through its ticket allotment from the bowl game.”We are one hour and change from
campus. We are a close drive to a lot of our students and alumni,” said BG interim head coach Adam Scheier.
”I think the fan support will be important.”I just get goose bumps talking about it … The last time we
were there (for the Mid-American Conference championship game) we experienced a very emotional event.”There
may have been some concern with students being on break, that the BG contingent might not reach five
figures.”I’m hearing that there are actually more fans expected to come to this one than the MAC
championship, which really kind of surprised me,” said BG fifth-year senior Paul Swan. ”I figured we’d get
a good amount of fans, not the amount that they’re talking about.”It’s going to be great to have great fan
support. I’m sure Pitt is going to bring a lot of people. They are a big school that probably travels pretty
well,” he continued. ”It should be a really great game atmosphere.”Swan also knows he’ll hear his father,
Scott, no matter how many people are in the stands.”Back in high school, my dad was the loudest person in
basketball, track, football; you could hear him over everybody,” Swan said. ”At Ford Field when we were
there for the (MAC) championship, I could hear him over everybody. You can definitely hear a lot of
stuff.”The noise level in an indoor stadium can be distracting.”In the MAC championship, especially in
that first drive my (defensive) line wasn’t hearing my calls. It was a mess for that first drive,” BG
linebacker D.J. Lynch said.”It’s a good location because all the fans are pretty close, easy travel for
them to get too,” Lynch, a Michigan native, added. ”It’s indoors so nobody can complain about the cold
weather … It’s a great thing.”COMPETITIVE: Scheier is a competitive man, a trait in over 99 percent of
all coaches.Scheier’s competitive nature even carries over into the family driveway.”I want to win this
game because I am a competitive man,” Scheier said about the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.”I want to beat my
daughter (Callie) when we play around-the-world in our driveway … It’s no different.”Callie Scheier is a
seventh grader at Bowling Green Middle School.”She can play. She gets coached by me as hard as Alex Bayer
(BG’s starting tight end) does,” Scheier said. ”I don’t treat her any differently. She’s pretty
good.”She’s vertically challenged, and potentially will be. She got the short end of the gene pool. My wife
and I are not very tall,” Scheier continued.”She did beat me for the first time in around-the-world, and I
was very proud of her. I don’t let her win; I don’t play that way.”GOALS: Bowling Green can achieve two
more of its goals tonight- winning a bowl game and beating a BCS team.”I wanted to play a BCS, so the
location really didn’t matter to me,” Lynch said. ”I just wanted to play a big-time team so we could get
another staple for our program going into the off-season.”We’ve been close, but that’s one thing we’ve got
to get done. We’ve got a great chance of doing it.”NUMBERS: A win tonight would be the Falcons’ 11th of the
season, tying the program record for wins in season. Bowling Green also won 11 games in 1985, 1991 and
2003.Bowling Green would improve to 3-0 all-time at Ford Field with a win. BG beat Northwestern 28-24 in the
2003 Motor City Bowl, and defeated previously unbeaten and nationally ranked Northern Illinois, 47-27 on
Dec. 6.The Falcons have three wins over bowl teams this season – Ohio, Buffalo and Northern Illinois –
out-scoring their opponents 120-34 in those three games.STARTERS: A total of 12 Falcons have started all 13
games this season, including the entire offensive line.There are 16 players on the current roster with 20
starts or more, with Dominic Flewellyn leading the offense with 46, and Cameron Truss topping the defense
with 43.