2024-07-12 10:59

Let's move on with the 2nd part of the conference previews.

Last week we had Conference USA, which is very likely in total the weakest conferences in FBS.

The second weakest is debatable. I had the Sun Belt as 2nd weakest conference, but I checked the conference results of last season and realized the Sun Belt did send 12 of 14 teams to bowls and won several of those even against teams from stronger conferences. So, I did check the next in line and saw that the Mid American Conference did send only 6 teams to bowls last season and had worse results in total.

That why I decided to have as 2nd conference the MAC.

Mid American Conference

Surprisingly the MAC is still not touched by the realignments and will gain in 2025 UMass as 13th team.

UMass was already member of the conference as affiliate member from 2012 to 2016 in football but will join now as full member after a period as indy team.

Beside that since 1998, when Buffalo joined, no full member did join or leave.

I'm still uncertain, whether this is good or bad, but I think it's in the long view a bad thing. The conference has no real motivation to change and on top they do likely lose ground against other conferences. With the money in future also going to players, I guess the MAC will have less room to improve, or better, will have less talent to work with and the conference will be on the short end of the stick.

We will see whether some of the top teams of the conference will get an offer from other conferences to join, once the PAC12 starts to make their moves.

IF teams do leave, I'm not sure what will happen with the remaining teams. Only time will tell.

This season the conference did abandoned their division structure and has all teams simply in one conference.

Those 12 teams will play for the TOP2 spots, which will send those TOP2 teams to the MAC Championship game.

The main contenders will be likely the defending MAC champion Miami (OH), followed by Toledo, Northern Illinois and Bowling Green. Problematic is, that because of the transfer portal business, the prediction become more and more difficult, since you never know, how leaving and incoming players will impact the whole chemistry of each team.

So, let's start with the defending MAC Champ, Miami (OH). They are guided by Chuck Martin in his 11th season with the team. He won the conference twice with the team and despite those 2 excellent seasons (8-6 and 11-3), he still has a losing record with the team and won only 1 of 5 bowl games (they went to 3 straight in the past 3 seasons). On the other hand, he had taken over a team at the bottom of the conference and did level it up to the status it has now, the favorite to repeat. He has a returning star QB, 4 returning O-liners and 6 returning starters on the best defense of 2023 in the MAC. Their schedule is challenging, but not impossible and they meet good teams most of the time at home. It might get hot for the TOP2 spots on the last 2 gamedays against NIU and Bowling Green, but they might have the ticket for a bowl and the Championship already in the pockets at that point. We will see.

Jason Candle is in his 9th season with Toledo, and it all looked like the team would repeat the 2022 Championship in 2023, until Miamis defense did hit them hard in the Championship game and the team did 'only' have a 11-3 season, including a bowl game. The team had NEVER a losing season under Candle, only 6-6 in 2019 as worst result. This season it does not look so good and only Candles ability to reload each season does land him this 2nd place here. Not many returning starters, including a transfer out by the QB, both sides with new faces in the trenches and some tough games already at the 1st half of the season. The good news is, it will be quite clear where the team head to, once November starts. If they are still in the TOP mix, they have a good chance back to the MAC Championship game. If they did drop too many games, the season will be only for a bowl game spot. As said, I trust the coaches to get the best out of their team, as they did in the past 9 seasons, but to stay realistic, this team could drop to mid-field also.

Next, the team, which is hard to predict. Northern Illinois under Thomas Hammock went 5-7 in his 1st season, then 0-6 in 2020 (COVID season), then 9-5 and a MAC Championship in 2021, followed by a 3-9 campaign in 2022 and at last 7-6 in 2023 including a late season push for a bowl game and a win in that match. Now we have the 6th season under him and no real clue what to expect. The offense needs a new QB, the defense returns almost every starter with 8. If the coach can do what he did in 2021, forming a team nobody did expect, NIU will be a force. But many question marks are there and schedule is quite demanding. They might fall short in the conference race for a championship spot, but I expect them to get a bowl spot at least.

Let's look at the wildcard for this season’s predictions. Bowling Green with Scot Loeffler in his 6th season has likely all the tools to turn the team finally into a winning team. It took some time, but the past 2 seasons the team went to a bowl (lost both) and did increase the win total to a high at 7 last season. And the team has their starting QB and 5 other offense players back, 4 of those from the o-line. And on defense returns even 7 starters, so if some teams in rebuilding or reloading mode do stumble a bit, Bowling Green might just pass them in a blink of an eye. Their schedule is quite tough, so that will likely limit their success, but you never know. I think they will make a bowl again and the rest is up to see. They could end in the Conference Championship game with a bit of luck.

Lance Taylor took over Western Michigan last year and is now in his 2nd season. Last year the team won only 4 games and missed a bowl, but with 15 players back as starters the team will likely add several wins on the win-total-stat. The Non-Conference schedule is tough with 2 BIG10 teams, but they avoid Miami (OH) and Toledo plus have NIU at home, so if they manage to get in the mid-level to top-level discussion, the team could land quite high in the table by just winning against the other mid-level teams. Likely a bowl game season.

After a 1st rough season did Tim Albin won 10 games in his 2nd and 3rd season, last year, with Ohio. The only thing which did limit their success was, they lost the crucial games against the top contenders. This season the team has to overcome many players exits because of graduation and transfer portal. On both sides the returning numbers of starters are low and crucial players are gone. They added some players via the portal to get this compensated, but very likely the heavy schedule plus the turnover on players will end the 10-win streak and the fans can be lucky, if the team gets 6 wins. On the plus side, the coach and the program did show they can form a team and can win games, so the team might surprise many fans, experts and others.

I have to admit, I'm impressed by Chris Creighton and his Eastern Michigan team. The program is one of the toughest jobs in FBS, not much money, not much attention, small town college packed in a conference with many many teams having of all much more. Still, after a period of adjustments at the start, the team wins games and goes to a bowl, regularly. Now in his 11th season, we might see a jump from last season’s 6 wins to something more, or not. That does sound fluffy, and it is, but with the Eagles it's always hard to predict. They only have 9 starters back, but the coach did got the most out of their players, including transfers, so far and with a mixed schedule, the team will eventually cash in some more wins, especially on non-conference games. A bowl game could happen, inside the conference they might fall a bit behind.

I never expected Jim McElwain, actually HAVING, to stay at Central Michigan for 6 seasons and maybe more. He was the HC of Florida and won their division twice, but never the conference. He got fired after a bad start in 2017 (his 3rd season) and became the HC of CMU in 2019. Since then, his results are mixed (which is likely the reason he never got a better offer), won the division twice, but also here, never the conference and his past 2 seasons were 4-8 and 5-7. I expected him to be on a hot seat, but maybe his contract did save him for last season. It seems the team has problems filling the gaps in the roster, which might bring the HC on the hot seat this season. They need a new QB and have to stuff several key holes in the defense. Their schedule is fluffy enough to get eventually 6 wins, but it will all depend on how the team does adjust on the new starters and how the incoming transfer QBs will perform. Non-conference games are in an optimal way a piece of cake, but if they fail on them already early, this could become a long season.

Mike Neu is now in his 9th season with Ball State and so far, no sign of the program they did put him on a hot seat for real. Sure, the guy did lead the Cardinals to a MAC Championship in 2020, but since then did the team win every season 1 game less, with last season’s record being at 4-8. So, likely the coach is soon on a hot seat, if the season starts bad. Chances are there for a big change, since he has to fill in many many holes on offense and especially on defense, where he only has 1 starter returning. A QB is need, the starting RB did run away to a different program, the O-line needs addition. But such changes do also give chance to do something dramatic, so maybe we will see something good? I doubt it, the non-conference games are quite tough, the remaining schedule is also tougher than average I think, so overall the chances are slim the team will win more games than last year and whether that is enough to keep the job? I don't know.

Buffalo did sink deep last season, winning only 3 games. Still the HC did leave on his own terms to become part of the new coaching staff of Alabama as Co-DC. Here again it shows, the money as HC in the MAC is way less than that one of a DC in the SEC. Pete Lembo was hired as new HC of Buffalo, being last season the special team coach of South Carolina. Lembo was already once a HC inside the MAC with Ball State, but left after 5 seasons to become an assistant at Maryland at that time. My guess is, he did want to build a career in the power 5 and was unable to make the next step, so he decided to become HC again to eventually make the next step out of that position. That's the only reason group of 5 HC positions are still attractive, you might get a call for the next, better paid, step, if you win big. With Buffalo he will have a lot of stuff to turn around it is not expected he will win many games in his 1st season. The amount of returning starters is limited, he needs to find his QB and the team needs to adjust. The non-conference games might give them some wins and the MAC schedule is actually quite soft compared to other teams, so IF he can build a team out of his players fast, we might get surprised. I doubt it will happen that fast, but you never know. He did bring Ball State to a 6-6 record in his 1st season and to 9 wins in his 2nd, so everything is possible.

Akron lost 20 games in 2 seasons under Joe Moorhead and now in his 3rd season, it's open, where the team will head to. His major problem is the o-line, which needs help to protect the incoming transfer QB. On Defense he is better suited, the unit returns 6 starters and was already quite good last season. Maybe they can win some of the close games they lost last year and the win total does rise above 2, but I doubt a bowl season. Their non-conference schedule is brutal, and the rest is tough. Last year they did stay in the games against good teams and lost close ones, maybe this season they manage to finish some of them off with a win?

And then there is Kent State. Kenni Burns came in last year to basically rebuild the team. The transitions of players and staff did hurt a lot last year and the team did win only 1 game. This season they return 12 starters and might be able to improve the mess they were in last year. The offense needs to crawl out of the cellar of the MAC and the defense needs to stop plays more often. The outlook is not great, they have a brutal non-conference schedule and only late in the season they might be able to squeeze out some wins against other likely weak teams. I expect another rebuild season.

The one-conference approach is new for the teams but will bring in a better conference championship game matchup. With the teams likely being on one hand quite close in terms of strength and on the other hand quite far apart in terms of strength of schedule, the results can be quite mixed and not necessarily will the bowling teams reflect the strength inside the conference.

That’s it for the MAC, more next week.

'Til next time
Jack6 on BLOCK OF GRANITE

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