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We still controlled our own destiny, even before Miami lost this weekend. The head-to-head matchups with Bowling Green, Buffalo, and Miami will decide our fate. Unfortunately, ALL of those games are on the road. The head-to-head tie breakers that come along with those victories are also going to be very important as well.

uakronkid...It doesn't matter if Miami wins today. Akron would still win the MAC East if they beat them in Oxford since we'd both have one division loss, and Akron would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker. In fact, I'm somewhat hoping that Miami wins today since that would essentially eliminate Temple from the race. And since we don't hold a head-to-head tiebreaker edge over Temple, it would be good to get them out of the way. We'll see how this all plays out, but this 6-game schedule to decide the MAC East title really leaves little room for error. But, I can tell you that our loss to Temple last week didn't matter much. Whether we had beaten Temple, or lost to Temple, we were still going to need to beat both Miami and Buffalo head-to-head. Let me explain...Even if we had beaten Temple last week, we would have been 2-0 in the division, same at Buffalo. And even at 2-0, if we lose to Buffalo, we go to 2-1, and they go to 3-0 AND they own the head-to-head tiebreaker. That would leave us having to make up 2 games on them, with only 3 to play. Pretty unlikely scenario.

First of all, Akronad...thanks for the stats.As far as Marshall is concerned, I really can't come up with an explaination other than the fact that they went from recruiting as a top-level MAC school, to trying to recruit as a bottom-level C-USA school.

Buckzip....I'm not saying that it cannot be overcome. I'm merely stating that the situation exists.Lets hope that in a state like Ohio, there is truly room for another big dog. And I hope that is us.But speaking of competition....Is there any state in the country that has more 1-A football programs than Ohio? I'm counting, and I can't seem to come up with any, other than Texas, that may be close to having as many as Ohio.I'm asking the stats people to figure this out for me. I'm too lazy.

johnnyzip... I like the Y-town iceberg comment.I guess much of this had to do with my frustration over the last 30 years pertaining to "if Akron wants to get bigger, then show the country that we deserve to be bigger". You all make valid points, but our easiest path to garnering interest from the big conferences lies in our ability to show that we belong in a bigger conference. Marshall has done that, but I don't see any other team in the MAC following that path since. I'm not aware of Toledo ever being courted by larger conferences, but I could be wrong.

Guys,We're going to start a freshman at point guard. That's reason for concern amongst anyone who might be prognosticating our conference. Don't disregard Ohio. They had two of the best inside players in the league, and both are returning.Miami has only lost Nathan Peavey, and a part-time big stiff on the inside.Can't clearly is loaded with talent, and all 5 starters return.Listen. This poll is not out of whack. It's up to us to prove that we can overcome this and win against these teams, who clearly have some advantages over us heading into the start of the season.

If the Cleveland media market is what attracts a big conference to Akron, they will quickly see that the Cleveland media market focuses on Ohio State. Once again, if Akron can't show that their football program can generate revenue, nobody will seriously consider us for entry into a larger conference. Look at the MAC.....Besides Marshall, who packed their stadium, and was a perennial winner, has anyone else from the MAC ever been courted by a big conference? NO. Most of us reside in the states of Ohio and Michigan, where OSU and MU severely impact our ability to attract attention. Win + Generate Ticket Sales = Big Conferences Will Take Notice.It's our only chance.

Money HAS to be the most important factor. A major conference wants to see if you can generate revenue for them. And no MAC school presently generates positive revenue from football. I'll stick with that I have been saying all along. If a representative from a major conference ever wanted to take a serious look at Akron, they'd immediately be turned off once they came to a game and saw 5,000 people in the stands.

Actually, this was about what I expected.Can't State returns all 5 starters.Miami only losses Nathan Peavey and a part-time big man.Ohio returns both of their big men inside.

I'll clarify. I'm talking about the Marshall game that we won during Charlie Frye's senior year. The game that was on ESPN. It's a win that catapulted us to a showdown with Miami for the MAC East title during JD's first year. For you historians, the game a few years earlier where Leftwich broke his leg is actually shown in the movie "We Are Marshall". Well, at least a small clip of it.

To make my response very simple, I'd probably not rely upon a chat board about a particular defense, if I were a college coach trying to decide upon a good defensive strategy.

I must say, I would not have expected to see that Jacquemain has an 85 QB rating. That's certainly pretty good for a first-year starter.

Ok...let me step in here.....Even the couple of winning seasons we had under the LO era were unimpressive. One of them showed us posting 7 wins against teams with somewhere between 10-15 COMBINED wins between them. We never made any progress against the top teams in the MAC under LO, and he had an overall record of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 games under .500. JD would have to literally fall apart as a coach to ever even remotely approach that mark. Beyond that, LO never got the BIG wins we needed to get us anywhere. In the JD era, we've already won a game against a BCS team on the road, won a MAC title, and beat a good Marshall team to take us to a season finale against Miami for a chance to win the MAC East on another occassion. Last year was a downer. And this year is a little shaky right now. But we've made tremendous progress as a program under JD. Many schools would LOVE to be .500 overall after 3-1/2 years of a rebuilding process. Z-P....Your comment about the teams in the MAC East being better back then? I totally disagree. Marshall was certainly very strong back then, but LO routinely got his MAC wins every year against the teams that were perennially winning 0-2 games per season, like Can't, Buffalo, and Ohio. The MAC East is much stronger these days. In fact, look at the latest MAC power rankings. The bottom 3 teams are all from the MAC West. There's no easy wins in our division right now, and that was certainly not the case back then.

His medical redshirt would have been almost impossible to attain. He played over the allowable time to get a medical. And I don't see anyone changing that rule for him. Remember, John Mackey is a different breed. He loves to play football so much that he would do something like this. He knows it's probably his last chance to ever play the game, so I can't really blame him for giving it a shot. From what I recall, his injury was not going to require surgery, and may not have been all that severe. If that is the case, maybe some rest has already started to heal the damage enough that he can return before the end of the season. But I'm no doctor. I'd love to see him out on the field again.

Good Post. An increase in the interest level is certainly a step in the right direction.

Recruiting on a national level? I like your optimism hugo. Not going to happen anytime soon.Racer, there were some play calls in the 2nd half, such as the reverse, that were thrown in there. They just didn't work. And many teams have run the clock out with a 17-point lead in the 4th quarter, and cruised to an easy victory. We just didn't get it done.

Here's my perspective....As far as this game is concerned, I think there may have been some tentative play calling in the 4th quarter. I think we really believed that we could just run the clock out. As for the defense, I cannot fault any of those players. If someone is to take any blame, I hope it is the D. Coordinator who put those guys in some questionable positions in the last part of the game.

I think just about everyone believes that they make the star ratings based on what schools are in the recruiting battle. It would be pretty difficult for so many high school kids to truly get evaluated.

After last week, this had to be pretty much expected.What strikes me is that the bottom 3 teams are ALL from the MAC West. Draw whatever conclusions you want from that.

Might get slow without a game this week, but I noticed something this morning that could very well play to our advantage.Buffalo plays a road game at Syracuse this weekend. Sure, the Orangemen are not the greatest, but we are going to get to catch Buffalo after they've played in a road game that will likely be very physically demanding. And even if Buffalo pulls off the upset? We catch them after an emotionally draining game. And, if anyone remembers the letdown we had the week after beating NC State last year, you know how this can happen. Either way, I think we will be playing them under very favorable circumstances for us. Also....is anyone else surprised that Can't State is a 5.5 point favorite to beat Bowling Green this weekend?

It seems like the higher we get in the standings, the more people are voting against us. And that would make sense. I'd do the same thing.Hopefully we'll cruise to a playoff spot at this point, but pushing ourselves to a few more wins right now would pretty much close the deal.

Buffalo now becomes our first true MUST WIN game....Here's why...With only 6 divisional games, you HAVE to win the head-to-head battles with the teams that are ahead of you in the LOSS column (Buffalo and Miami). If not, you fall two games behind them, and you don't have the tiebreaker, so you are essentially out of the picture. This is why Can't has virtually eliminated themselves. They have lost to Miami, and now have two more losses than Miami. So, they'd need to make up 3 games. That's nearly impossible in a 6-game schedule.The Temple loss? Sure, it adds an "L" to our standings, but we only have 1 loss, and they have 2, so there's no problem there at this point. Anyway, we can't fall 2 games behind Buffalo in the loss column, AND have to overcome the loss of the head-to-head tiebreaker, which essentially makes us have to make up 3 games on them before the close of the season. Once again, nearly impossible when you only play 6 divisional games.Of course, there are exceptions, like the total collapse of the Golden flushes at the end of last season.

Akronad...good point.In your division, you only have 3 homes games, and 3 road games. We've already lost a home game, which now makes it really tough. And 2 of those upcoming road games are Miami and BG. It's not looking good right now, but hopefully we will keep battling.

I just think it's funny that they make all of those important people stand out there in the middle of winter with a shovel in their hands to take pictures.

jeaglet...good post. I just noticed myself that Zippy is officially posted as being 5-0. We're cruising to a playoff spot now.I hope you calculations are correct on the voting this week, to give us the best chance to widen our gap.Nice job everyone!!