Gotta Respect the MAC

It's already week ten of the college football season, and after its brief 15 minutes of fame, the Mid-American Conference is getting no love, again.

Although it seems like light years ago, it was just week six when the MAC had the biggest day in its history. If you're a college football fan you remember that day. Marshall knocked off then No. 6 Kansas State, Toledo shut down No. 11 Pittsburgh, Northern Illinois beat No. 22 Alabama, Miami of Ohio beat a highly regarded Colorado State team and Bowling Green lost by just a touchdown to the defending National Champions.

Now, just a month later, the MAC is back to business as usual. Other than ESPN's College Gameday trip to Bowling Green this past Saturday, the MAC is still earning little national attention.

Sure, a few MAC teams did hurt themselves after week six. Marshall lost to a 4-3 Troy State a week after beating Kansas State, and Toledo lost to a pretty good Syracuse team the same week.

But MAC teams such as Bowling Green, Miami and even Northern Illinois aren't getting the respect they deserve.

Bowling Green is currently ranked No. 23 in this week's Associated Press poll. The Falcons have beaten everyone on their schedule with the exception of the defending national champion and then undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes. The Falcons dropped that game by a score of just 24-17.

If that game wasn't enough to demonstrate that the Falcons are in the same league as the country's elite teams, then their 27-26 win over Purdue the week before must have, right?

Wrong. The Falcons have yet to crack the top 25 in the coaches' poll and it took until this week to make it in the AP poll. The Purdue Boilermakers, though, are ranked No. 10 in both the AP and Coaches polls. I might be wrong, but I think that a few of the people who vote for these polls might be addicted to smack.

Then there are the Miami RedHawks. The RedHawks dropped their opener to Iowa, 25-3. We here at UB know what Iowa is capable of; so considering it was the first week, that's not too bad a loss. Since then the Red Hawks have raised their points per game average to 40.4, good enough for fourth in all the land. They won non-conference games against Northwestern, Cincinnati and Colorado State.

But their successes haven't led them to the top 25 either. Miami is currently the sixth leading vote getter among unranked schools.

Northern Illinois is currently the MAC's flagship school after being its biggest embarrassment in the '90's. The Huskies have beaten Maryland, who was ranked 14th at the time and Alabama, who was No. 22. Michael Turner is currently third in rushing, with 929 yards, just 70 behind Michigan's Chris Perry. All that, coupled with NIU's wins in MAC play, has led the Huskies to a No. 12/14 ranking. That's all fine and dandy, but the Huskies are a better team than that.

Who's ranked ahead of the Huskies? Yup, you guessed it - no, not Frank Stallone - teams from the "powerhouse" conferences, including two PAC-10 teams, two SEC teams and two Big-Ten teams.

The one saving grace in all this is that NIU is currently ranked tenth in the BCS standings. But that still means that two of the teams ahead of NIU need to lose while the Huskies must run the table to even have a chance.

This situation is why the NCAA has to institute a playoff system. Without it there is no possible way a MAC school, or any other small conference school with a legitimate shot at a National Championship, can possibly win one. But that is an entire column in itself.