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The Weekly Wrapups will look back at the games of the weekend, such as it is, and present my conference power rankings. They get shorter when conference play starts.
The MAC went 6-7 against 13 out of conference teams this weekend, a much better start than they had in 2008. Broken down, the league was 6-0 against FCS teams, 0-1 v. Pac-10, SEC, Sun Belt, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, and independent Army. So it wasn’t great, since nobody in the MAC beat a FBS team. That will change Thursday, no matter what. Let’s look at the games.
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It was not a pretty night for non-BCS teams across the country last night, particularly those going up against BCS conference schools. It could have been worse- nobody lost to a FCS school, although some tried. A quick rundown of last night’s action follows.
Lots of good stuff lined up for today- Friday night football preview and weekend previews for four conferences, at the very least. Happy College Colors Day. Flags up!
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There are so many games going on tonight that it’s going to take at least two posts. It’s a beautiful thing. Happy College Football Day, everyone. We’ll go vaguely from east to west on this thing. My plan for this year is to offer a little more opinion on potential outcomes, for better or for worse. All times Eastern, lines courtesy of Vegas.com. Let’s go.
7:00 PM – Southeast Missouri State (FCS) at Ball State: The SE Missouri Redhawks went 2-9 last year. That is the extent of my knowledge of Ball State’s opponents. The Ball State Cardinals might be a decent team this year and should win easily. No line.
7:00 PM – Rhode Island (FCS) at Buffalo: The Rhode Island Rams went 1-10 last year, and that is all I know about Buffalo’s guests. Once again, they should be no match for Buffalo, new coach and all. No line.
7:00 PM – Hampton (FCS) at Central Michigan: As you have probably figured out, there won’t be much time spent researching these 1-AA opponents. The Hampton Pirates were 5-6 last year, and again should not stand in the Chippewas way. As usual for FCS games, no line. If you find one offshore, just stay away, Vegas dodges them for a reason.
7:00 PM – Murray State (FCS) at Kent State: The Murray State Racers went 3-8 last year. I could have just copy/pasted these first four, huh? Kent State better not lose. No line.
Now, on to the good stuff.
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The team previews are done, so we’re zooming out a level to look at each conference as a whole, and we’re doing it fast- football is very nearly upon us.
The Mid-American Conference had what might have been a bit of a breakout year in 2009. Both division races went down to the last two weeks, with the East not being decided until the MAC’s now-traditional Thanksgiving Friday season finales. But the football was exciting and competitive all through the season, the league showed up for two of the best bowl games of the year, and Central Michigan ended the year 23 & 24 in the polls.
For 2010, we have two clear favorites and a few question marks right behind them about who will emerge- and someone always does- to push the favorites right to the end of the season. In the West, Northern Illinois is loaded and ready to chase down their first conference championship since 1983. In the East, the resurgent Temple team looks to avenge their final-Friday loss to Ohio and take their place in the title game.
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Football on the Fringe Season Previews were ranked, then delivered in random order.
We made it. The 54th season preview. Football is mere days away. We’ll do some conference previewing in the next couple days, the first non-BCS Top 25, and real actual game previews by Thursday. Joy. Now, about Buffalo.
Despite a quality road win to open the season out at UTEP, Buffalo had a hard time getting things on track after that, dropping their next four games to get behind the eight ball early. They won their next two, then lost three MAC games by 3, 1, and 3 again. The grabbed two more wins at the end of the year to finish out a respectable 5-7, not the numbers they were looking for after a conference championship in 2008.
2010 looks to be tumultuous for the Bulls. Head coach Turner Gill is gone, now in charge at Kansas, and with a new coach will also come a new quarterback and lead rusher. The good news is that 8 players are back from the #3 total defense in the MAC, so if the new offense can score points, the team will be competitive.
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The MAC had an eventful weekend, although it actually all ended by Friday. We knew Central Michigan was on to the conference final, but Ohio has joined them by ending Temple’s impressive win streak at 9 and taking the East division. The rest of the league did wrap up play last week as well, with one team earning their all-important 7th win, and another it’s 12th loss.
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First off, happy Veterans Day! The internet is full of cool content to commemorate it, but sadly, I’ve got nothing that could do a worthy job. So I’ll just press on with mid-major football over here in my corner.
Last night, Ohio kept it’s MAC Championship hopes alive, by evading Buffalo with a late field goal. This [...]
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
Today’s theme has unintentionally turned out to be ‘Disappointing MAC Teams.’ The reality of the situation is that the MAC, with a few solid counter-examples, has had a pretty rough out of conference season, and more MAC teams have reached six games than the other conferences, so they make up a lot of this week’s posts. As for Buffalo, this season held a lot of hope- they won the MAC last year, their coach has garnered unprecedented national attention, and the school has left it’s laughingstock ways behind. Unfortunately, they’re sitting at 2-4 and 0-2 in the league after a 4 game losing skid made life difficult.
- Wins: D. The lone 1-A win was in the opening weekend at UTEP, which seemed to signal the start of something good. Instead, the Bulls dropped games to Pitt, UCF, Temple, and MAC powerhouse Central Michigan. All four of these teams might still be good, but that’s still not the start that UB fans had hoped for. Read Post
Like C-USA, the MAC has a mix of conference and non-conference games this week. I’ll mention some of the other games, but since nobody here is contending on the national scene, we’ll mostly look at the conference games to keep an eye on tomorrow:
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This was an amazing weekend of college football. So amazing that it took me a full day to start processing everything. So we’re going to jump right into the conference weekly wrapups, beginning with the leagues I didn’t get to last week. We’ll go with the MAC first. Read Post
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