The Curse of the Fat Punter

This past weekend I had such high hopes, yet as all things with sports I was brought crashing back down to reality. I spent $21.95 for the one day ESPN Plus game package so I could see Bowling Green play Miami for what some called the game to decide the MAC East. If BG wins they control their own destiny, if Miami wins, BG now has to have Miami lose two games to have a chance. Well, as you can tell by the first line Bowling Green decided not to show up and got decimated 47-14. There are some fans think we just can’t beat Miami and it didn’t help that Ben Roethlisberger was there. I on the other hand blame the curse, THE CURSE OF THE FAT PUNTER.

Lets take a trip back in time, when Sheryl Crow hit it big with “All I Want to Do,” Aerosmith released the same song three times, but just changed the words and Live was all over the charts with hits from Throwing Copper. Bowling Green was 9-1 and looking for its third MAC championship in four years, all they had to do was take down Central Michigan. To be honest CMU was 8-2 but had one lose in the conference and appeared to be inferior to BG. It’s hard to believe this now, but Gary Blackney was being considered as a replacement for John Cooper at Ohio State, it was being played at Doyt L Perry Stadium and there should be no way we lose. Well CMU was hungry and we overlooked the Chippewas.

It was a close game the score was BG 25 CMU 21 and BG had the momentum, it was 4th and 3 and Central was lined up to punt. When Craig Fischer decided not to punt, but to run. BG forgot to rush the punter all game and Mr. Fischer took off and ran 73 yards untouched for a game changing touchdown. The amazing thing was he was not your normal punter, he was a big boy! I’m no spring chicken, but damn how do you have a punter that looks like a linebacker? Also, he was slow, I mean Bernie Kozar slow. I was a freshman in college, I was attending Ohio University Southern for a year to save a lot of money and get rid of all those freshman classes at the same time. I was planning in going to BG the following year. If it wasn’t for money I probably would have gone my freshman year to BG. I was lying on my parents couch when this happened. I jumped up screaming GET HIM! GET HIM! HOW ARE YOU NOT TACKLING HIM, HE’S BARELY JOGGING! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! That was the breaking point in the game, BG lost and Central Michigan went on to win the MAC and go to a bowl game.

From that point on BG has never won an outright MAC title, the closest we have gotten is a MAC West title, but Mr Roethlisberger clowned us at Doyt L Perry Stadium. That was our first home lose in a couple of years. Prior to the fat punter game Gary Blackney was considered a coach on the rise with a 26-7-2 record, afterward he went 24-43 his last game as coach was a 51-17 lose to the hated rivals Toledo. Gary Blackney has never been a head coach again.

Our next coach is now considered to be a great coach, Urban Meyer, he had a great record at BG 17-6, but never won a MAC title and NEVER I repeat NEVER went to a bowl. I actually think he knew of the fat punter curse, with a chance to win the MAC West we need a win against Toledo to have a shot. While leading he decided to run a fake punt, but alas the curse raises it’s angry fat fingers and the play fails, season over. There were rumors that Urban was going to Michigan State and we were resigned to that idea that he was going to Sparty, but he threw us a curve ball. He told the Sentinel that we was going to sign a new contract with BG. Hoozah cheered the BG fans, but little did we know that Urban Liar was to jump on a plane that same night and sign a new contract with Utah. He then trashes the program calling it second rate and his wife was the one who wanted to move to the mountains. I still have not forgiven him for that. I don’t mind the job change, but how he did it. You don’t give your word, go back on it and then insult your previous boss, just classless Urban.

After that BG did have some success, we did win one MAC West title with our current coach Gregg Brandon, but as I have mentioned, we ran into the buzzsaw known as Ben Roethlisburger. We have won a couple of bowl games, but no MAC titles. Then the curse of the fat punter decided to pull the program back down to craptiude. In 03 and 04 BG goes 20-6 and after that we have gone 6-5 and 4-8. That 4-8 is deceiving we were not that good.

The lowest point in the programs 88 year existence has to be last years lose to Temple. Temple was the laughing stock of 1A football, they had not won a 1A game in 33 tries, we go into Philly and the curse attacks us like Craig Fischer on a bag of donuts, we lose 28-14. Doyt Perry is rolling over in his grave, a once proud program now one of the worst in the nation.

This year there was a lot of indecision on how this team would fair. We switch quarterbacks to start Tyler Sheehan and the falcon faithful are still not for sure what kind of team we have. Then we go to Minnesota and win in overtime 32-31 in all honesty BG had that game won at halftime, but we let the gophers back in it. We lost a good game to Michigan St. We got a couple of wins including a redemption win against Temple and then against Western Kentucky. Now the big challenge, we are playing the #7 Boston College. Lots of falcon fans thought we had a chance, they can’t run the ball and have problems with pass happy teams. BG can’t stop the run and we throw the ball over 50 times a game. Well, fat punter again ruins another chance as we lose and lose bad 55-24.

With the Miami loss it looks like we are playing for second, that’s not even a given any more. I don’t know any more, it appeared that this team was solid and had a chance, but for another year we looking down the barrel of a losing season. Since fat punter the program has had only 5 winning seasons and has a record of 74-71. Yes, I know that is a winning record, but take when you have three 5-6 seasons plus a couple of winning seasons the numbers look better than they are. We need to some how break this curse; one of the ways is to bring in a fat punter of our own. Maybe that will break it. We currently have a fat place kicker (6-1 255lbs), but that has only helped a little and we have started the back slide again. Maybe we need to bring fat punter Craig Ficsher back, tell him we are going to give him an award or something. When he’s on the field, Vince Palko can rush the field and tackle him. I vote for the latter, but for now the curse is here and will not be going away.