The Mid-American Conference championship football game is not until Nov. 30 in Detroit.
Until then, playing Kent State at Bowling Green on Nov. 17 for the MAC East title will fit in quite nicely.
Kent State is 9-1 overall and 6-0 in the MAC East, while Bowling Green is 7-3, 5-1. The Golden Flashes are ranked No. 25 in the latest Associated Press poll.
“It’s a fine line,” coach Dave Clawson of Bowling Green said. “You want the guys excited, but there is also a routine you have. There’s also a way we go about preparing; it’s worked for us. I think what’s at stake in the game will take care of itself.
“We just have to focus on preparing for a very good Kent football team. It’s not a week that you do things differently in terms of a routine or anything like that.”
The Bowling Green game will be Kent State’s seventh on the road this season, with coach Darrell Hazell of the Golden Flashes saying the dimensions of the field are the same and the things that happen outside the lines don’t matter.
Kent State is 5-1 on the road, with a loss at Kentucky to open the season. The Golden Flashes pulled a road upset at Rutgers last month.
“I told our guys last week that anytime you play in a championship game, which virtually this is, you don’t do anything different,” Hazell said. “You just continue your same preparation; you don’t feel like you have to do anything extraordinary. You just have to go about your business as usual and be a little more focused.
“This is a very mature football team. They have stayed hungry throughout the whole process. We have talked about some of the things that have been said outside of our locker room and how it cannot effect us in how we prepare.”
The Falcons are 4-0 in Perry Stadium this season.
“We would always prefer to play at home,” Clawson said. “There is definitely an advantage of playing the game on the same field that you conduct every spring practice, every fall game, every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday practice.”