Revenge of the MAC

by CRS Staff

 

Forget the rise of Big Ben & Byron Leftwich as two of the NFL’s up and coming young signal callers.  Despite both being great stories this past football season, two other developments that garnered far less attention illustrate exactly how far the MAC has come in football reputation.  Over the span of several weeks in late November to early December, an amazing five teams (Marshall, Northern Illinois, Miami, Bowling Green, & Toledo) from the MAC were chosen to play in NCAA post-season bowl games, and former Nebraska coach Frank Solich was hired as head football coach at Ohio University.  Neither story made the front page of many sports sections across the country (rumor has it that at a local Athens sandwich shop, ‘The Solichburger’ has not caught on quite like a similar treat in Pittsburgh), but these two stories were every bit as important to the conference’s continued development on the gridiron.

 

Sure, you could argue that the MAC only received five bowl bids because not enough major conference schools were bowl-eligible.  You could also argue that with his Ohio ties, and having already enjoyed his time in the spotlight with Nebraska, Frank Solich returning to Ohio in a much lower-pressure-but-still-$220K+ per year gig is not that big of a stretch.  You’d be right on both counts.   The NCAA went looking for bowl-eligible teams without many options, and come to think of it, not many options were available to Solich either, who after some flirtations with Indiana was not known to have been aggressively courted by the big boys.

 

Despite that, when you look at how far the MAC has come since before the days of Randy Moss hooking up with Chad Pennington at Marshall, MAC fans have to smile that the reputation of MAC Football has at least pulled even, if not exceeded, that of Basketball.   While most MAC football programs outside of Huntington, WV, and sometimes Bowling Green, Ohio, were still struggling with legitimacy in recruiting circles, MAC basketball long enjoyed a spoiler reputation that has left many larger programs wary of scheduling non-conference games with the MAC.  After 2003's Upset Saturday in which Kansas State, Pittsburgh, and nearly Ohio State fell prey to MAC upstarts, we’re likely now seeing that hesitation in football as well.

 

Before anyone gets too carried away, the MAC is far from earning an annual BCS invitation, and most MAC schools will still consistently struggle to recruit top players, especially when their backyards are in Big Ten country.  Still, MAC fans are enjoying their taste of success, especially when that taste is a big bite from a Roethlisburger.