MAC Media Day for Football--Falcons picked 5th

Today is the big media jamboree at Ford Field for MAC football....you can check here for updates during the day. The BG News is there and doing consistent updates, and you might just as easily follow them. I know I will.

Down to the business at hand...

Recognizing that these picks are almost always based on what happened last year and a rudimentary sense of who is coming back, I think the media followed the conventional wisdom that CMU and Buffalo are the strongest teams in the conference. (See BG News post here, hat tip included)

West Division

1. Central Michigan

2. Western Michigan

3. Northern Illinois

4. Toledo

5. Ball State

6. Eastern Michigan

East Division

1. Buffalo

2. Temple

3. Akron

4. Ohio

5. Bowling Green

6. Kent State

7. Miami

I will have much more to say about how the MAC is going to shake out between now and the Troy game. However, having said that, I will make a couple comments.

• On paper, CMU is far and away the favorite to win the MAC. Not winning last year will just create some hunger.
• I think Buffalo is overrated. Big questions at QB, and they won some miracle games last year, which often indicates a level of good fortune you cannot count on. Still, I recognize they are the sexy pick.
• Having said that, the East is as wide open as it was last year.
• I still think Bowling Green is being hampered by two things, one real, one perceived. The real one is that we lost so much on defense that we are going to struggle. The perceived one is that Dave Clawson can't win in the first year.
• I think this could be Temple's year.
  
• Finally, the thing than cannot be forecast is the toll that injuries will take on any of these teams. Football has small samples, and if you are not healthy at the wrong time (even a game or two), your chances of winning can be eliminated.