Sunday, October 26, 2014

Past and Future Opponent Land, and West domination benefitting BG

BG might have had the best off-day in the history of the Mid-American conference.  There were five games played between teams from the West and teams from the East and the West won every single one of them, meaning that BG ticked up on each opponent.  The only game featuring East-only teams was Miami-Kent, two teams unlikely to challenge for the division title.

BG has one division loss.  Akron has two and everyone else has at least 3.  Furthermore, BG has beaten Buffalo, OU, and UMass, meaning that essentially they have a 3-game lead against those teams.

Even more than before, the Akron game will decide it all.  If BG beats Akron, they would only need one win in the final three games (@UT, Kent and Ball State) to lock it down.

Thanks to today's loss, even if Akron beats BG, the race continues.  Both BG and Akron would have two losses, and while Akron has a softer schedule coming home, they could easily lose one more time.

Finally, I think it is entirely plausible that the East winner will finish with 3 losses, and even with a loss to Akron, BG might still win some tie-breakers if they ended up being multi-team tiebreakers.

Point is, for as disappointed as some Falcon fans are and as weak as the East is, BG is pretty much one win for heading back to Detroit.

One last thing:  how is the "WMU is awful" camp reacting?

Western Kentucky (3-4) Beat Old Dominion 66-51
VMI (1-8) Lost to 38-3 to Wofford
Indiana (3-4) Idle
Wisconsin (5-2) Beat Maryland 52-7
UMass (2-7) Lost 42-35
Buffalo (3-5) Lost to CMU
Ohio U (4-5) Lost 42-21 to WMU
WMU (5-3) Beat Ohio 42-21
Akron (4-4) Lost to Ball State
Kent (1-7) Lost to Miami
Toledo (5-3) Beat UMass 42-35
Ball State (3-5) Beat Akron

MAC vs. Power 5: 4-22
MAC vs. non-MAC FBS: 3-12
MAC vs. FCS: 11-2
East vs. West: West leads 10-2

No comments :