It’s hard to take too much away from this week. Everyone in the MAC was playing a “pay for play game”, either hosting an FCS team or going to a P5 conference school. Usually those are lopsided games that don’t speak to conference performance.
Buffalo scored the most points in college football this week, against a terrible FCS squad. Akron was destroyed by an amazing G5 programs.
The most telling games came from NIU and Ball State.
NIU knocked off Georgia Tech. The Yellowjackets are not a power team, but it was a great win by a program many picked to finish dead last in the MAC West.
Ball State won, but didn’t destroy WIU. You expect better from a team which is the huge favorite to win it all.
Here’s my take this week
| Rank | Team | Pre | Δ | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ball State | 1 | 0 | That was *NOT* a very convincing win over an FCS school, but not enough to fall out of first |
| 2 | Toledo | 3 | 1 | Solid win over an FCS squad. But you never really learn a lot from those types of games |
| 3 | Kent State | 2 | -1 | Hard to punish a team for losing to the number six team in the nation, but Kent never looked good at all. |
| 4 | Northern Illinois | 7 | 3 | Called it... Georgia Tech is not an amazing team this year but nobody was respecting what NIU is bringing to the table |
| 5 | Western MIchigan | 4 | -1 | Good first quarter, not so much after that |
| 6 | Ohio | 5 | -1 | The post Solich era did not start well, Ohio was kept out of the endzone the entire game by Syracuse. |
| 7 | Buffalo | 8 | 1 | Wagner is not at all a good team, even by FCS standards so a win here does not teach us too much about the Bulls. |
| 8 | Miami | 6 | -2 | It was 35-0 before miami showed up, but they were playing the #8 team in the country and managed to look decent in the second half |
| 9 | Eastern Michigan | 10 | 1 | Solid win by EMU, offensively they were very sharp and are showing enough that they will give most of the teams in the west some serious competition. |
| 10 | Central Michigan | 9 | -1 | Gave Mizzou a run for their money, that's a lot for this team. |
| 11 | Bowling Green | 12 | 1 | Didn't expect a lot, and Bowling green didn't do a lot. |
| 12 | Akron | 11 | -1 | Auburn did to Akron what Buffalo did to Wagner, fitting since one of the BRuWPeG comments said "Wager was the Akron of FCS" |