MAC Blogger Roundtable...my answers for the week.

1. With Bowling Green's strong showing last week against defending MAC East Champs Kent State, they recently were bumped up to the top of our power rankings over NIU. Would you put BGSU (or any other team) ahead of the Huskies right now? Why or why not?

Well, obviously this is a Bowling Green blog, but I wouldn't put BG or any other MAC team ahead of NIU right now.  Don't get me wrong, we are thrilled at where the team is right now, but based on one game with Kent (without their best player) I wouldn't put us ahead of what is a very good NIU team.  We will know more after the UT and OU games later in the year.

2. There appears to be a huge chasm between the top of the MAC (NIU, BG, BSU, Ohio, UT) and the bottom (CMU, WMU, EMU, MU, UMass, Akron) with Kent State and Buffalo leaning more towards the top. Do you think this is good or bad for the MAC? Do you see things possibly evening out at all?

On one hand, it does help our good teams build up gaudy records, which gets attention, unwarranted as it might be.  Look, some teams are always going to be better than others--this isn't Lake Woebegon--so in a sense the teams might change but this isn't that unusual.  I worry more about the teams that seem to have structural issues--EMU, UMass and Akron--as opposed to CMU, WMU and Miami, where winning has at least happened historically.  Speaking of Miami, I wonder what everyone thinks about that.  Treadwell certainly isn't making the progress I expected.  Related question---combined with Dan Enos, is it possible the Dantonio coaching tree sucks?

3. Even with all of the talk of the "New Association" for the AQ teams, this is still the last year of the BCS. Which team is most poised to crash the BCS, and is this the year the MAC wins a BCS bowl game?

So, last year NIU busted the BCS with 1 loss.  That was controversial enough, so let's assume you need to finish with 1 or fewer losses to bust in.  Right now, 5 MAC teams (UT, WMU, Buffalo, UMass and Miami) already have two losses.  Of the 1 loss teams, I think it is safe to say that EMU, Akron, and CMU will not be running the table.  I don't see Kent doing it either, which leaves us with OU, BG, Ball State and NIU.

Honestly, I think the only team in that group that has a shot at making it again is NIU.  We're happy with how BG is playing, but there's a lot of games ahead (@Indiana, @Mississippi, UT, Ohio U. and @Buffalo) before you can starting thinking like that.