2014 #MACtion vs. Loser Conferences

[Balsy]

Will update this list weekly. This is a place to discuss MAC football games for the 2014 season, while also seeing where the MAC is vs other conferences.

MAC vs. FCS: 12-2

W Akron vs Howard

W Ball St. vs Colgate

W CMU vs UT Chatanooga

W NIU vs Presbyterian

W Buffalo vs Duquesne
W Toledo vs New Hampshire

W EMU vs Morgan St.

W BGSU vs VMI
L Miami vs E. Kentucky

W WMU vs Murray St.

L Ball St vs Indiana St

W Buffalo vs Norfolk St

W WMU vs Murray St
W Ohio vs Eastern Illinois

MAC vs. BIG: 3-8

L WMU vs Purdue
L Ball St. vs Iowa

W CMU vs Purdue

W NIU vs Northwestern

L Akron vs Penn State
W BGSU vs Indiana

L Can't St. vs State Ohio

L Miami vs Michigan
L EMU vs Michigan State

L BGSU vs Wisconsin
L UMass vs Penn State

MAC vs. C-USA: 0-5

L Miami vs Marshall

L BGSU vs W. Kentucky
L Ohio vs Marshall

L EMU vs Old Dominion

L Akron vs Marshall

MAC vs. AAC: 0-2

L Toledo vs Cincinnati
L Miami vs Cincinnati

MAC vs. ACC: 1-4

L UMass vs Boston College
L CMU vs Syracuse

L WMU vs Virginia Tech

W Akron vs Pittsburgh

L Can't vs Virginia

MAC vs. M-WEST: 1-0

W NIU vs UNLV

MAC vs. Big-12: 0-1

L Buffalo vs Baylor

MAC vs. PAC-12 0-2

L UMass vs Colorado

L CMU vs Kansas

MAC vs. Sun Belt: 2-1

L Can't vs. S. Alabama
W WMU vs. Idaho
W Ohio vs Idaho

MAC vs. Independents: 0-1

L Buffalo vs Army

MAC vs. SEC: 0-4

L Ohio vs Kentucky

L Toledo vs Missouri

L EMU vs Florida

L UMass vs Vanderbilt (very close game for a MAC vs SEC game)

L NIU vs Arkansas

[Balsy]

In regular #MACtion fashion, the MAC has faired well against it's FCS opponents...but not well against anyone else.

Can't and Ohio's game was exactly where I thought it'd be, except Ohio winning was not expected.

Buffalo had a horrible 1st half against Duquesne, (right now) EMU is fighting to hold onto a measly 3pt lead.

BGSU had a TERRIBLE game against WKU. Way to represent the MAC BGSU. Hopefully their Defense looks like that when we play them.

UMass actually held Boston College to only a 23 pt lead. I was expecting them to be blown out by 40.

Miami is the major surprise this week. They held in tough against the Mighty Thundering Herd.

[LZIp]

Appreciate the work Balzy. Always interesting to look out how the conference fares against others.

[Balsy]

MACtion has a difficult schedule today. The BGSU and Miami teams will be facing off against FCS teams. Akron, Ball St, CMU and NIU are all facing off against Big-10. Can't is playing against the Sun Belt. WMU and Buffalo are taking on Independent teams. And Ohio, Toledo and EMU are all squaring off against SEC teams. Mighty UMass heads to Mighty Colorado for the only MAC vs PAC-12 matchup on the season.

Hopefully MACtion can pull off a couple of upsets. In an ideal universe I'd like to see the conference pull off four upsets: 2 vs Big-10 and 2 vs the SEC.

[PB1719]

CMU is looking good against Perdue!

[PB1719]

That's CMU and NIU taking down B1G teams

[Balsy]

MACtion had another rough day, dropping most games to D-I conferences. Ball State loss though...

[Balsy]

No so good week for MACtion. Toledo and Buffalo were handled last night by Cincinnati and Baylor. Ohio getting whomped by Marshall, Can't getting whomped by State Ohio. Interesting gams going on for UMass, up 14 pts on an SEC team. BG keeping it close with Indiana, as is CMU.

[johnnyzip84]

The close defeat at home to Colorado made me think that Whipple was turning things around quicker than expected at UMass. It looks like they're giving Vandy all they can handle in Nashville this afternoon. The Buffs and Commodores are not good football teams, but still this is a remarkable showing so far for the Minutemen. It just goes to show how important a HC can be to a program. In watching them some today, they have some nice size and Whipple has them playing with confidence. The transfer QB from Marshall, Blake Frohnapfel, is pretty good as well. Now I'm even more glad the MAC gave them the boot.

[Balsy]

UMass looks like it's lacking depth amongst all things. UMass defense started falling apart in the end against an SEC team. I feel like UMass will be like Akron in 2012. Showing up, making a game of all games, but dropping it in the end.

[johnnyzip84]

UMass looks like it's lacking depth amongst all things. UMass defense started falling apart in the end against an SEC team. I feel like UMass will be like Akron in 2012. Showing up, making a game of all games, but dropping it in the end.

That's a decent analogy (especially with Blake Frohnapfel playing the role of DW13), but I'll predict right now that I don't think UMass goes without a MAC victory in 2014. Road games at K.E.N.T. and Miami along with true home games versus U@B and EMU will surely yield one Minutemen happy day.

[Balsy]

That's a decent analogy (especially with Blake Frohnapfel playing the role of DW13), but I'll predict right now that I don't think UMass goes without a MAC victory in 2014. Road games at K.E.N.T. and Miami along with true home games versus U@B and EMU will surely yield one Minutemen happy day.

I agree with that. For the most part my 2012 Akron analogy is that the team looks completely different than the year before. Not enough for 5-wins...but enough to keep people wondering when the shoe is going to drop.

[Dr Z]

Bowling Green continues Little Ten's woes by beating Indiana.

Good gravy Ken+ is tur-able. Obviously they have not heard of the rule that the RB is eligible to catch forward passes out of the backfield as well as run the ball. If they get that rule down, they can improve to being just BAD. AJ needs to implement this into his game plan if Ken+ continue to ignore this major hole in their defense.

[LZIp]

@MockingTheDraft The MAC has more wins against power five teams than the Big Ten

[Balsy]

What a horrible weekend of #MACtion. Good lord.

Two teams (Easter Michigan and freaking Ball State) lost to FCS teams; which should add to The BIG-10 problems...because Ball St almost beat Iowa...and Iowa lost this week...but anyways. Marshall completely annihilated the Bobkittens, Cincinnati and Baylor both annihilated their MAC opponents (Buffalo and Toledo).

In unsurprising fashion, the Michigan Wolverines struggled early against the mighty Miami Redhawks, CMU fell to Syracuse in blowout fashion.

The only silver lining on this day is that UMass almost beat Vanderbilt. But Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. We gotta watch those UMass minuetmen though, I don't like where they are on our schedule. Last home game of the season for us, where we play our rival Can't State (who also go completely annihilated this week), it SCREAMS trap game.

Edit: Eastern michigan Lost to Old Dominion which is no longer FCS

[johnnyzip84]

Nice job keeping this up to date, Balsy

It's been a generally down OOC year so far for the MAC and your summary supports this. All the more reason why UA should be in the mix to get to Detroit.

NIU and BG still look pretty strong to me. I know Johnson is out for the season, but as I was telling fellow Zip fans in Happy Valley, I think he is a product of a system. Knapke looked very good against the Hoosiers. He's bigger and might have a stronger arm. It will be a challenge to beat them, but we do get them at home.

Just one small correction while I am at it. ODU is not FCS. They are now in CUSA East.

[MDZip]

Yes but this image from sports center this morning was fun.
http://zipsnation.org/forums/gallery/image/671-2014-09-14-074040

(Sorry for not embedding it I cant get that option to post correctly)

[Dr Z]

Bowling Green continues Little Ten's woes by beating Indiana.

Good gravy Ken+ is tur-able. Obviously they have not heard of the rule that the RB is eligible to catch forward passes out of the backfield as well as run the ball. If they get that rule down, they can improve to being just BAD. AJ needs to implement this into his game plan if Ken+ continue to ignore this major hole in their defense.

What George thinks about Mac vs "big" Ten.

[Balsy]

Just one small correction while I am at it. ODU is not FCS. They are now in CUSA East.

Correction made!

[Balsy]

What George thinks about Mac vs "big" Ten.

Or the little fact that the MAC currently has a 3-4 record against the "BIG".

[Balsy]

Another week of #MACtion. As everyone is already aware of, Akron hosts C-USA opponent Marshall;
MAC vs the BIG we have EMU taking on Michigan St, BGSU vs Wisconsin, UMass vs Penn State;
MAC vs SEC we have NIU vs Arkansas,

MAC vs Pac-12 we have CMU taking on Kansas

MAC vs Sun Belt is Ohio vs Idaho,

MAC vs AAC is Miami vs Cincinnati

MAC vs FCS we have WMU taking on Murray St and Buffalo taking on Norfolk St.

[Balsy]

[Balsy]

List is updated.

[GP1]

MAC vs SEC we have NIU vs Arkansas,

My wife made a good point about this game last week. In her office, the do a "suicide poll". Not sure what you guys call it, but you can only pick a team to win once in a year so you have to be certain they are going to win when you pick them. She took Arkansas and had some really good reasoning. It got me thinking about our upcoming game against Pitt.

Her point was (and she graduated from two different MAC schools, Miami and UofA) that she noticed that MAC schools tend to upset BCS level schools early in the OOC schedule but not late in the OOC schedule. She felt certain NIU couldn't go to Arkansas and win. It got me thinking...Why? I think if a MAC school is going to win one of these games, they have to do it early because of the following:

1. The difference in talent. Better talent develops in a season faster than lesser talent. The more games played, the more they have developed.

2. Depth. Better and deeper talent becomes overwhelming for the MAC schools after a couple of injuries.

3. Practice. These early season games allow the BCS teams to practice their offenses and defenses more so they are more prepared.

4. Integrating new players. It is a huge advantage to play new starters at home than on the road where they are less comfortable. As they get more practice, they are even more comfortable playing at home.

We are coming up on the fifth week of the college football season. This amount of time has given Pitt a lot of time to develop their talent, prepare their depth, practice plays and integrate new players. A school that size should do it faster than we do. Heck, we already have some injuries to key players. I thought we could win the Pitt game going into the season if a few things went our way. I don't feel like that now.

[Balsy]

A few games are in the books today. List is up-to-date.