FalconBlog--Triumphs and Trials in the BGSU Falcon Nation

MAC Wins Motor City Bowl

And a good thing, too. You had CMU--the MAC Champion--playing a team that didn't even win the Sun Belt title in what was essentially a home game. Yes, you did have Brian Kelly fly the coop during bowl prep, but the MAC still needed CMU to win that game. And they did, pretty easily.

These are not golden days for the MAC. NIU was waxed by TCU out of the MWC. According to the Sagarin college football ratings, the MAC was the 12th ranked Division I conference, behind even the Great West in I-AA (probably an anomaly--its a 5-team conference and one of them beat Minnesota, but STILL). The only worse conference in I-A was the Sun Belt.

We are so long from the days of Pennington, Leftwich, Rothligsberger--really, the glory days of the MAC. (Include Josh Harris if you like). I don't know what to make of it, but we used to have a conference with a gulf between the haves and the have nots. Today, there really aren't, from a national perspective, any haves at all.

I have a theory that it was the Marshall effect. I remember when UM came in, he said that Marshall was the team to shoot for in our conference...that they were just loaded. Did that force everyone else to be better? I don't really know, because they weren't performing when they left the MAC, but there is no disputing the results. The MAC is a shadow of where it was only a couple of years ago.

It doesn't put a great light on our Falcon season....4-8 in a weak league. Still, I'd rather feel how Central feels tonight than how I feel. (about football, anyway).