Bowling Green State University Athletics
Craig Jarrett Feature Story
November 07, 2003 | Football
Nov. 7, 2003
By JACK CARLE, Sentinel Sports Editor - There's no looking back.
You can't change the past; only the future matters.
That's a good outlook on life and Craig Jarrett, a fifth-year senior with the Bowling Green Falcons, is following that philosophy.
Jarrett dropped a key pass at the goal line in Bowling Green's 24-17 loss to defending national champion Ohio State.
After the game, Jarrett did not hide from the media. He answered numerous questions about the drop before the bright lights of the cameras and the tape recorders and notebooks of reporters.
Now, almost two months later, Jarrett continues the routine of going to classes and practices attempting to better himself and his teammates as the Falcons battle to reach the Mid-American Conference championship game. BG is 7-2 overall and 4-1 in the MAC West.
"The best is yet to come," Jarrett said prior to BG's game at Miami on Tuesday. "Our goal is the win the West and be MAC champs ... we haven't gotten that goal yet."
Both Jarrett and the BG coaching staff still have confidence in his abilities.
"I catch balls in practice every day. I have confidence in myself," Jarrett said.
The coaching staff showed its confidence during the key game against Northern Illinois last month. The second play of the game was a 44-yard pass play to Jarrett, who made a nice catch of a perfectly thrown ball by Josh Harris.
"It was a little confidence booster," said Troy Rothenbuhler, BG's assistant coach who works with the tight ends. "It was just a matter of him keeping confidence. Nobody has lost confidence in him. We know what he's capable of doing."
The reception against NIU helped BG move to its first touchdown and gave the Falcons a quick jolt of adrenaline.
"Josh just threw me a great ball," Jarrett said. "They blitzed everybody and I was wide open. I think it gave us some momentum.
"When the tight end is in, I think we run the ball most of the time anyway," Jarrett added. "It just adds another dimension to our offense when we can throw to the tight end in the game."
Still, it's blocking which gets a tight end onto the field for the Falcons.
"It's fun to get down in the trenches and try to push them out," Jarrett said.
"He's just a very strong kid. Once he gets a hold of them, he runs them back pretty good," Rothenbuhler said. "Tight ends have to take a lot of pride in blocking, that's most of our job."
A native of Bellevue, Jarrett came to Bowling Green as a recruited walk-on. He knew about the Falcons from several sources, including football camp at BG during his grade school and junior high years.
"I've just always been kind of a Falcon fan," Jarrett said. "It's great to come here and be somewhat close to home."
An outstanding student, Jarrett chose Bowling Green not only for football, but also academics. He was Bowling Green's Senior Student-Athlete of the Year for the past academic year, was named to the MAC honor roll, is a member the Omicron Delta Kappa National Honor Society and maintains a 4.0 grade-point average.
"I had academic and athletic scholarships from Division II and Division III, but I really wanted to play Division I football," he said. "I came in here with a Presidential scholarship for grade-point average and ACT scores in high school; that kind of helped persuade me to come here to."
Jarrett has already finished his biology major and needs one more class this spring to achieve his chemistry major as he prepares for medical school. This fall he's working on minors in math and entrepreneurship.
With the demands of a double-major in the hard sciences as well as playing football, Jarrett says setting priorities and sticking to them is the key to getting everything done. The priorities are school, football, a social life and then sleep.
"What I sacrifice the most, not so much this semester, is sleep," Jarrett said. "You don?t get as much sleep as you should, but in the end I think it will be worth it."
While his academics are top-notch on the football field, Jarrett has survived a position change, two head coaching changes and an injury to earn the No. 1 spot at tight end and become one of the four captains selected in a vote of his teammates.
"Craig is one of the hardest working guys on this team," Rothenbuhler said. "He prides himself that he has worked himself into the position he's in now."
