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Robert Morris 24, St. Francis 14 (3rd)
Iowa 20, Iowa St. 13 (F)
Toledo 71, Texas Southern 3 (F)
#1 Georgia 45, Ball State 3
Mississippi St 14, Arizona 0 (1st)
Miami (OH) 7, UMass 0 (1st)
FAU 10, Ohio 7 (H)
Minnesota 0, EMU 0 (2nd)
CMU 45, New Hampshire 42 (F)
S. Illinois 14, N. Illinois 11 (F)
BGSU 38, E. Illinois 15 (F)

NIU already lost to an FCS team, and Akron and Buffalo are currently losing to their FCS opponents in the fourth quarter. CMU needed a last second FG to beat their FCS opponent.

MAC looks mostly bad. Again.

If we can somehow gel and get some rhythm by the MAC slate, I think most games can be interesting. By no means will we contend for the title, but outside of Toledo, no one looks too impressive. Though I am afraid the EMU curse will continue.

But we're going to have to withstand a couple more butt-ugly displays like today before we get there. Hopefully our health and morale stay intact.

Robert Morris 31, St. Francis 21 (F)
Miss St. 14, Arizona 7 (H)
Rowboat 10, EMU 6 (H)

(09-09-2023 08:08 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  NIU already lost to an FCS team, and Akron and Buffalo are currently losing to their FCS opponents in the fourth quarter. CMU needed a last second FG to beat their FCS opponent.

MAC looks mostly bad. Again.

If we can somehow gel and get some rhythm by the MAC slate, I think most games can be interesting. By no means will we contend for the title, but outside of Toledo, no one looks too impressive. Though I am afraid the EMU curse will continue.

But we're going to have to withstand a couple more butt-ugly displays like today before we get there. Hopefully our health and morale stay intact.

Brian Ferentz needs to average 25ppg to keep his job past this season, so they'll probably score 60 on Western next week.

I feel like every year we rediscover how bad the MAC is and it's only getting worse now that any decent players just transfer to P5 schools.

CMU got really lucky and probably should have lost to New Hampshire. UNH had 538 yards of offense, about 100 more than CMU. UNH's QB had 493 passing yards and 4 TDs. UNH's RB had 295 receiving yards!

NIU lost to Southern Illinois, Buffalo lost to Fordham, Akron needed last minute heroics to beat Morgan State.

St. Francis lost to Robert Morris. NIU's good win last week looks worse now, as BC almost lost to Holy Cross.

BTW, New Hampshire's QB Max Brosmer broke the Kelly/Shorts Stadium single game passing record that was held by WMU's Tim Hiller.

(09-09-2023 08:42 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  I feel like every year we rediscover how bad the MAC is and it's only getting worse now that any decent players just transfer to P5 schools.

MAC went 4-2 in bowls last season.

(09-09-2023 09:14 PM)Cocksman Wrote:  

(09-09-2023 08:42 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  I feel like every year we rediscover how bad the MAC is and it's only getting worse now that any decent players just transfer to P5 schools.

MAC went 4-2 in bowls last season.

So what?

(09-09-2023 09:16 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  

(09-09-2023 09:14 PM)Cocksman Wrote:  

(09-09-2023 08:42 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  I feel like every year we rediscover how bad the MAC is and it's only getting worse now that any decent players just transfer to P5 schools.

MAC went 4-2 in bowls last season.

So what?

The MAC won it's first outright Bowl Challenge Cup last year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_Challenge_Cup

https://bowlseason.com/news/2023/1/13/ge...e-cup.aspx

It's quite an accomplishment even if we didn't have the number of teams as the larger conferences, IMHO.

(09-09-2023 08:42 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  I feel like every year we rediscover how bad the MAC is and it's only getting worse now that any decent players just transfer to P5 schools.

CMU got really lucky and probably should have lost to New Hampshire. UNH had 538 yards of offense, about 100 more than CMU. UNH's QB had 493 passing yards and 4 TDs. UNH's RB had 295 receiving yards!

NIU lost to Southern Illinois, Buffalo lost to Fordham, Akron needed last minute heroics to beat Morgan State.

St. Francis lost to Robert Morris. NIU's good win last week looks worse now, as BC almost lost to Holy Cross.

It is just going to keep getting worse too. Some good players just want to play for championships. I'd rather play for a ring instead of playing a garbage bowl in Alabama. The only thing the MAC had going for it was MACtion, but now scouts will have tape on everyone, and the competiton isn't that different.

Give us a playoff.

We are basically a high-end FCS league at this point, thanks mostly to the transfer portal.

In fact, take away the 20 or so-more scholarships that we get because we're FBS and we're basically there. (I think that's still a thing?)

This is exactly what the powers that be wanted and they're getting it. The playoff committee was looking for ANY reason to keep us out of the Cotton Bowl in 2016... it took a couple of 1-loss teams crapping the bed in the last couple weeks of the season to make it so that they literally didn't have a choice.

At least we had our day in the sun that year. That will never, ever come close to happening again.

North Dakota State would make the MAC championship game year in and year out.

All is not lost yet, though. We still have 2 more weeks of OOC play. And transfers can be for better or worse. I think it puts us in better position this year VS yesteryear with a new coach & team reboot (like our 1st year with PJ). We can get talent coming in to fill the gaps much more readily -- but the downside is, if your team sees the classic 7-5 year-is-a-good-year, the few star players will be leaving. So ya gotta be title contenders with a realistic goal of hitting double-digit wins by the end of the post-season to not be harmed the other way on transfers.

None of this is new. The MAC has always been 'mediocre.' The top team or 3 are usually very good, the rest are 'mediocre.'

The portal is frustrating for sure, but it s/ work both ways - you s/b finding under utilized talent on top teams or pulling talent up from levels below us.

You could kind of always say the MAC was akin to a high end FCS league. I agree things have gotten worse- it was already trending that way before the portal, which I'm sure hasn't helped.

So it comes down to this: Would your rather be FBS with good odds of making a bowl (>.500) or FCS in a playoff system? IMO, I'll take the FBS and the bowl payout with WMU receiving national exposure.

Quote:“The expanded Playoff will draw a clear line between games that are playoff games, and games that are part of sort of the rest of college football’s postseason. And I think if that group, we’ll call that bowl season group, embraces that and identifies sort of what they want to be about, what important pieces they play in the college football postseason, i.e., all the teams that don’t make the playoff that still deserve some sort of postseason experience, like embrace that and really wrap their arms around it and message it appropriately. I think it can work in their favor.”

https://theathletic.com/4002669/2022/12/...10-pac-12/

Bowl payouts??? There’s no such thing as bowl payouts anymore for the bowls at the level WMU attends. The schools pay to go to the bowl game. The money games are way out of our league now.