With the shock departure of Northern Illinois and the pursuit of Toledo, the MAC has existential questions to face at a crucial juncture in college sports.
The new reality of the college football world came crashing down on the Mid-American Conference offices in Cleveland, Ohio, back in late September, when the Mountain West Conference— a peer institution at the non-Autonomous level— announced their intention to engage in discussions with Northern Illinois and Toledo about potential expansion.
The Mountain West was, understandably, under immense pressure after being raided by the remnants of the PAC-12 Conference only weeks earlier themselves. The MWC’s being split in twain— and their immediate fight to survive— was a natural progression of an unnatural situation; one which was birthed as a result of the old Conference of Champions being slaughtered at the hands of monied interests whose consolidation of power over the sport was more necessary than the storied history of Western collegiate athletics and its role in the overall health of the scene.
After decades of relative stability, the MAC was seen as a last bastion of the traditional collegiate ideal in a flurry of movement at all levels of the institution. That perception is what makes Northern Illinois’ departure for the Mountain West Conference as a football-only member in 2026 all the more shocking.
NIU has always been a bit of a black sheep in the MAC family; their 37 years in the league are non-consecutive, after all.
A previous sojourn to the doomed Big West Conference in the late 1980s went sour, forcing the Huskies to crawl back to safety in the early 1990s. They also weren’t always successful, either. The football program in particular struggled until the mid-2000s, and was once known as the nation’s losingest, famously dumping the goalposts in the nearby East Lagoon after winning the 1998 “Streak Buster” game against Central Michigan.
But once they figured things out, they really figured things out.
In their time in the MAC, the Huskies have lifted themselves up from an also-ran program with decades of losing efforts to one of the country’s foremost non-Autonomous teams in the 2010’s, with six-straight MAC West titles (and eight overall), five MAC championships (2011-12, 2014, 2018, 2021) and an appearance in the Orange Bowl in 2012 as the best non-Autonomous team in the country.
In fact, since 2010, NIU has been the best football program in the state of Illinois by winning percentage at both the FBS and FCS levels, with a 109-70 record entering 2024— despite a handful of double-digit loss seasons.
They’re also responsible for some of the MAC’s bigger upsets over Autonomous programs, hauling in 13 wins over such programs since 2003— including wins over ranked Maryland and Alabama (2003) and Notre Dame (2024.)
There’s no getting around it: NIU’s impending departure is a loss for a conference which can’t afford many of those. Everyone in the college sports scene knows who NIU is; they’re perhaps the conference’s biggest national brand over the last 20 years, and the MAC no longer has them amongst their fold. That can only be interpreted in unflattering terms.
No amount of rationalizing can cover up the emotional or financial scars of losing the Chicago market out from under the MAC.
The conference will be out one of the winningest programs in recent years. Ball State and Miami lose a trophy game rival, and Toledo loses a sparring partner which created some of the MAC’s best moments since the creation of this blog back in 2011.
No more Boneyard wins to claim, no more Huskie Stadium on November weeknights. No more Huskies Devil magic on a weekly basis. Institutions a whole generation of MAC fans grew up with will be no longer.
The MAC will also lose the Chicago media market (#3 in the country behind Los Angeles and New York) and the Central time zone with NIU’s departure— both extremely valuable assets in any future media deal.
There are plenty of reasons why NIU would leave; a small television deal, a lack of destination games as a big-market team and the long-term effects of weeknight games all stand out and are all extremely valid criticisms— criticisms the MAC will now have to address moving forward.
NIU’s departure is a direct potshot at the conference’s core philosophies.
During Tuesday afternoon’s presser, the point was re-iterated by NIU’s athletic director Sean T. Frazier that the reason for the move was because of long-term concerns about the stability of the MAC given the rapid change of environment in the NCAA— naming the House vs. NCAA settlement, name-image-and-likeness issues and access to both the transfer portal and College Football Playoff as pressure points.
Opting for the monetary gains of being the “eastern” team in a Western-based football league, therefore, is seen as the better option in a time where geography and history has increasingly meant little in the collegiate athletic sphere. There was a clear frustration at not being heard boiled over, and they took the first train out of town. This is NIU’s prerogative, as they have their own motivations as a program and have to do what they feel is right.
(And also, lest we forget, Toledo was another target of the Mountain West Conference before the additions of Utah State and UTEP— an indication they hold significant outside value should others start to see blood.)
Every other conference has seen aggressive shuffling of its membership in recent years, and NIU joining the fray is an indication as such. We previously discussed what happened with the PAC-12 and the Mountain West, but it’s impacted every level of FBS.
Conference USA has turned nearly completely over in only a decade, with five of its 10 current members joining post-2023, while two more schools will join in 2025 (Delaware and Missouri State) and UTEP (a member since 2005) will depart in 2026.
The American Athletic Conference has lost several programs to Autonomous conferences— including UCF and Houston— and robbed from its fellow Group of Five brethren to fill its numbers with the promise of riches to follow.
The MAC’s peers have all largely adapted to changing conditions. Conference USA is akin to a hotelier, taking on any and all comers with a dollar and a dream and giving them a place to stay. The AAC opted to go for lesser-known programs in large media markets to take advantage of a good media deal with ESPN. The Sun Belt Conference was extremely careful about their additions, keeping a tight-knit geographical sphere like the MAC, but emphasizing competitive programs ready to create compelling matchups right away.
The MAC has always opted for the stability and close-knit culture of its core 12 members to maintain a universal collegiate experience for its student-athlete and alumni bases. This has largely worked for them over the decades, and does have its benefits.
But for the first time in decades, their ideals have been challenged. There will be pressure to hold to convention or conviction; the pang of the heart knowing the potential end of a relationship will surely impact whatever comes next.
But for now: nothing really changes.
The winter and spring sports seasons are either underway or will soon be in session. NIU will continue to compete as a MAC member until the conclusion of the 2025-26 academic season.
The members of the 11 MAC schools which have stood by their side for nearly four decades will get their last chances to leave a winner against the Huskies. UMass will get their swipes in upon joining as the lucky #13 team in 2025.
Life will go on as normal once the whistles blow on the various fields of play. We’ll have plenty of time to appreciate what we have while it’s here, to relive the memories of days of yore.
As fans, however, we cannot help but to worry. Our faith in the conference will be tested. Every game played will be painted with the inevitability of change. We can only watch and hope the powers-that-be steward the conference in the right direction.
Make no mistake: the MAC must be resourceful in navigating this crisis. There is no staying the course here. Survival is the only way forward.
Whether that’s recruiting unorthodox, imperfect schools into the fold or reconsidering principles and traditions previously considered sacrosanct to the conference culture, commissioner Jon Steinbrecher and the remaining school presidents will have to think long and hard about how they got here— and how to prevent it from happening again.
Or else the Best Little Conference in the Midwest could be next to be lost to the maelstrom of change in modern college sports.