USA Today Poll

[K92]

Did you all see that 3 MAC schools received votes in the pre-season USA Today Poll?

Temple received 2 votes and Northern Illinois and Central Michigan each received one vote apiece.

Thoughts?

[ZachTheZip]

5 MAC coaches vote in the polls. I'm sure some of them put a MAC team at #25. They always do at the beginning of the season.

[skip-zip]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

[Jalapeño Zippy]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

Hence why teams should schedule beatable BCS teams, not $ games.

[skip-zip]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

Hence why teams should schedule beatable BCS teams, not $ games.

I had hoped that my use of the word FORMIDABLE would get noticed. I wouldn't expect a MAC-level school to make progress in the "others receiving votes" category, or have any chance of reaching the top-25, if they do not beat a significant opponent.

It all depends how you are defining the word "beatable", but if it means possibly beating a bottom-feeder Big 11 school, do you think that would get all that much attention on the national stage? I don't.

[ZachTheZip]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

Hence why teams should schedule beatable BCS teams, not $ games.

I had hoped that my use of the word FORMIDABLE would get noticed. I wouldn't expect a MAC-level school to make progress in the "others receiving votes" category, or have any chance of reaching the top-25, if they do not beat a significant opponent.

It all depends how you are defining the word "beatable", but if it means possibly beating a bottom-feeder Big 11 school, do you think that would get all that much attention on the national stage? I don't.

Ball State was in the top 25 in 2008, and their best wins came against Indiana and Navy. CMU was in the top 25 a couple of years without beating a single BCS opponent. You just need a good record and then build a lot of hype to get voters to notice.

[Jalapeño Zippy]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

Hence why teams should schedule beatable BCS teams, not $ games.

I had hoped that my use of the word FORMIDABLE would get noticed. I wouldn't expect a MAC-level school to make progress in the "others receiving votes" category, or have any chance of reaching the top-25, if they do not beat a significant opponent.

It all depends how you are defining the word "beatable", but if it means possibly beating a bottom-feeder Big 11 school, do you think that would get all that much attention on the national stage? I don't.

Ball State was in the top 25 in 2008, and their best wins came against Indiana and Navy. CMU was in the top 25 a couple of years without beating a single BCS opponent. You just need a good record and then build a lot of hype to get voters to notice.

It's not so much who you beat, it's how long you stay unbeaten, scheduling bottom feeders and winning only hurts when you are in title contention and that is not going to happen for a MAC school anytime soon.

[skip-zip]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

Hence why teams should schedule beatable BCS teams, not $ games.

I had hoped that my use of the word FORMIDABLE would get noticed. I wouldn't expect a MAC-level school to make progress in the "others receiving votes" category, or have any chance of reaching the top-25, if they do not beat a significant opponent.

It all depends how you are defining the word "beatable", but if it means possibly beating a bottom-feeder Big 11 school, do you think that would get all that much attention on the national stage? I don't.

Ball State was in the top 25 in 2008, and their best wins came against Indiana and Navy. CMU was in the top 25 a couple of years without beating a single BCS opponent. You just need a good record and then build a lot of hype to get voters to notice.

It's not so much who you beat, it's how long you stay unbeaten, scheduling bottom feeders and winning only hurts when you are in title contention and that is not going to happen for a MAC school anytime soon.

I was just going to comment on ZachTheZip's post when I saw yours pop up as well.

I think all of those situations that ZTZ mentions were undefeated teams. And I've said many times on this board that an undefeated team, in either basketball or football, would almost surely be ranked by season's end. But, as we see every year, it's such an improbable task to play perfectly and without any letdowns throughout an entire 12 game schedule, and into the bowl season. Out of the 120 D-1A teams, we maybe have one team each year that does this? Or, sometimes NONE. I think the much more likely scenario to get ranked for the duration of the season is to have a great record, and also have a marquis win or two.

[Jalapeño Zippy]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

Hence why teams should schedule beatable BCS teams, not $ games.

I had hoped that my use of the word FORMIDABLE would get noticed. I wouldn't expect a MAC-level school to make progress in the "others receiving votes" category, or have any chance of reaching the top-25, if they do not beat a significant opponent.

It all depends how you are defining the word "beatable", but if it means possibly beating a bottom-feeder Big 11 school, do you think that would get all that much attention on the national stage? I don't.

Ball State was in the top 25 in 2008, and their best wins came against Indiana and Navy. CMU was in the top 25 a couple of years without beating a single BCS opponent. You just need a good record and then build a lot of hype to get voters to notice.

It's not so much who you beat, it's how long you stay unbeaten, scheduling bottom feeders and winning only hurts when you are in title contention and that is not going to happen for a MAC school anytime soon.

I was just going to comment on ZachTheZip's post when I saw yours pop up as well.

I think all of those situations that ZTZ mentions were undefeated teams. And I've said many times on this board that an undefeated team, in either basketball or football, would almost surely be ranked by season's end. But, as we see every year, it's such an improbable task to play perfectly and without any letdowns throughout an entire 12 game schedule, and into the bowl season. Out of the 120 D-1A teams, we maybe have one team each year that does this? Or, sometimes NONE. I think the much more likely scenario to get ranked for the duration of the season is to have a great record, and also have a marquis win or two.

And I believe marquee wins for MAC schools are wins over anybody in the Big 6 no matter their notoriety. So schedule the Syracuse's, Indiana's, Iowa State's, NC State's, whoever we can foresee as a competitive game and a chance to win and remain in position to be ranked nationally at season's end. That is when people will start to take notice and you will see the perception of the MAC begin to strengthen.

[skip-zip]

The challenge always is....can they stay there by winning a couple of their early non-confence games against formidable opponents. If not, they will fall to a more likely level, which is to be regarded as a "good MAC team" for the remainder of the season.

Hence why teams should schedule beatable BCS teams, not $ games.

I had hoped that my use of the word FORMIDABLE would get noticed. I wouldn't expect a MAC-level school to make progress in the "others receiving votes" category, or have any chance of reaching the top-25, if they do not beat a significant opponent.

It all depends how you are defining the word "beatable", but if it means possibly beating a bottom-feeder Big 11 school, do you think that would get all that much attention on the national stage? I don't.

Ball State was in the top 25 in 2008, and their best wins came against Indiana and Navy. CMU was in the top 25 a couple of years without beating a single BCS opponent. You just need a good record and then build a lot of hype to get voters to notice.

It's not so much who you beat, it's how long you stay unbeaten, scheduling bottom feeders and winning only hurts when you are in title contention and that is not going to happen for a MAC school anytime soon.

I was just going to comment on ZachTheZip's post when I saw yours pop up as well.

I think all of those situations that ZTZ mentions were undefeated teams. And I've said many times on this board that an undefeated team, in either basketball or football, would almost surely be ranked by season's end. But, as we see every year, it's such an improbable task to play perfectly and without any letdowns throughout an entire 12 game schedule, and into the bowl season. Out of the 120 D-1A teams, we maybe have one team each year that does this? Or, sometimes NONE. I think the much more likely scenario to get ranked for the duration of the season is to have a great record, and also have a marquis win or two.

And I believe marquee wins for MAC schools are wins over anybody in the Big 6 no matter their notoriety. So schedule the Syracuse's, Indiana's, Iowa State's, NC State's, whoever we can foresee as a competitive game and a chance to win and remain in position to be ranked nationally at season's end. That is when people will start to take notice and you will see the perception of the MAC begin to strengthen.

I would agree with you, except that with the absence of any significant opponents there's no room for error. You're hoping for the improbable chance of being one of those 120 teams that is lucky enough to go from wire to wire without a single loss each year. And by scheduling even lower-level BCS teams, which in many cases will be road games, you are decreasing that probability even further. Even Boise State, who had a weak overall schedule strength (and we are in the same boat because of our conference), was able to use that big win over Oregon early in the season to say, "we belong with the top teams in the country". When we think we are ready to be a Top-50 program, then we should want to show that we can beat a Top-50 program. Same with the Top-25.

[Zipsrifle]

So, considering where we stand right now, we should avoid all good teams and schedule as many cupcakes as possible. We would , of course, have to actually defeat those cupcakes and somehow survive without the money games. At this point in time, I just want to be contending in the MAC, I don't even care about a national ranking.