We look around the MAC for things to learn, and boy did we!
Anything is possible in the MAC, just ask Week 2.
All 13 teams had a roller coaster ride on Saturday, with some of them ending in the euphoria of hard-earned victory and most of them resulting in reaching for the barf bag. In some instances, both happened!
Let’s break down what we took away from the action last week:
The bottom of the table cratered in Week 2
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The MAC had some good results in Week 1 vs. FCS sides, winning them all convincingly. Week 2, however, was a different matter.
Ball State had to sweat out a one-possession win over a Missouri State Bears team who was 4-7 in 2023 in their first action of the season, while Kent State fared even worse. The Flashes suffered a multiple-possession loss to St. Francis [PA], a 4-6 team last season, in front of a decently-sized crowd to boot.
The polarizing performances aren’t so much the surprise. Every season, there is a MAC team or two which finds themselves in danger of getting got. It’s the way these two teams in particular struggled. Both games were marred with undisciplined play, potential or real turnovers and desperate fourth-down decision-making, and the two MAC programs often looked on par or underneath their competitors. In most other games, it comes down to some correctable mistakes or just tough luck. These games felt… different.
Mike Neu is in Year 9 at Ball State, and hasn’t had a winning campaign before or since their magical 2020 run in the COVID campaign. They won this game, but the fashion in which it was won might not inspire confidence from the administration. It feels like a bowl game is the only thing which can save him at this point.
Meanwhile, Kenni Burns is in Year 2, and had to do a lot of persuading to keep certain players around, promising they could build and grind together. An easily winnable game to stack for the season is now gone, and the team looked bad to boot. For a staff that’s all about setting culture, it’s a dual gut punch.
It’s hard to feel a lot of optimism with either of these sides after this week, and it places them both in some danger if they’re caught out by an opponent again.
There’s still work to do in the middle of the table
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
Every team progresses differently throughout the season, and there are plenty of capable programs in the MAC, but Week 2 proved to be a sobering reminder of life in college football.
In the wake of NIU’s amazing upset of #5 Notre Dame (more on that in a moment), were three consecutive conference losses that were frankly, not that close. Ohio State pitched a shut-out on Western Michigan a week removed from Akron getting decent work on the scoreboard. Buffalo was overwhelmed similarly by Missouri in their non-conference clash, unable to move the ball very much if at all. And then there’s Central Michigan, which arrived in Miami as 6.5-point betting favorites over FIU and lost by 36 points.
All of these teams are at least expected to compete for a bowl bid and all of them ran into giant brick walls, a la Wile E. Coyote.
The WMU result is perhaps most interesting, as they took Wisconsin to the brink the week prior and were expected to at least be mildly competitive, while Buffalo was lucky to escape with a 38-point loss and Central is left to look in the mirror to wonder why.
The good news is that it’s early in the season, and one win can do a lot for building momentum. The bad news is another loss for any of these teams could put them in peril for their ultimate goal— and could even result in the loss of a job if it all goes wrong from here.
Did we underestimate Northern Illinois?
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The answer to the question might be yes.
The NIU Huskies weren’t outsiders by any stretch, projected by most to finish around fifth place in the MAC. That’s not bad for the newly-podded conference, as in the old system, that likely put them as second or third in the West. The caveat to that was that the fifth in question was a distant fifth, as Toledo and Miami were preseason favorites and expected to win 10+ games apiece, which would put anyone under them at about 7-9 wins.
Now, Toledo and Miami are off to slow starts, with Toledo getting outpaced by UMass before taking advantage of special teams miscues this week and Miami still reeling off a completely winnable game against Northwestern (something the author of this piece is still genuinely mad about.)
Meanwhile, NIU disposed of their FCS opener with little effort and then went to South Bend, punched Notre Dame in the mouth, then took their date home in an emphatic, “pay me what you owe me” type of victory. It was truly an all-around effort, with a stifling defense (286 total yards, two sacks, four tackles-for-loss and two interceptions), a talisman running back in Antario Brown (225 total yards, one touchdown) and efficient special teams (3-of-4 on field goals, two blocked kicks.)
BGSU’s sheer amount of returnees and Ohio’s coaching edge despite the amount of turnover still puts them in the Top 5 area as well, it should be said, but maybe— just maybe— we slept on the possibility of another NIU Devil Magic run through the MAC.