2024 MAC Season Picks: Hope you like watching these Miami vs. Toledo games
I picked winners and losers for every game of the season. Will we end up seeing Toledo vs. Miami four times over two seasons?
Tomorrow morning, MAC Media Day will kick off in Canton, Ohio. I will not be in attendance for the occasion unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give my two cents of how I believe this conference’s football season will shake up this year. July is picking season, after all.
For my official 2024 MAC season prediction, give me a repeat of last year's championship game in Detroit once again. I was half-wrong on my picks last year. I was correct with Toledo being my pick for the West champion and was wrong about Ohio being the winner of the East side; Miami ended up going undefeated in that half of the MAC, and beat the Rockets to win its second MAC championship since 2019.
Last year, Toledo and Miami both made the championship game as champions of the East and West divisions, but those splits no longer exist. The two teams are strong staples to the ever-so-stable MAC, but had somehow gone a long time without playing each other. Last year, the two met at Oxford for the first time since 2011 and it ended with a 21-17 Toledo victory. Had Miami QB Brett Gabbert not suffered a tragic injury that game, maybe we’d be telling a different story.
Even without Gabbert, the two teams met again in the MAC Championship, and the RedHawks won its revenge match 23-14.
This year, Toledo and Miami get the great pleasure of playing each other on October 5 (Week 6) — one where Toledo will be coming off of a bye week, and Miami will be coming off of its homecoming match against UMass.
This is year #11 for Chuck Martin at Miami (same with Chris Creighton at Eastern Michigan). This is Jason Candle’s 9th year as Toledo’s head coach, but he’s been coaching there since 2009. Ohio might have a down year, but maybe not — fourth-year head coach Tim Albin has been there since 2005. MAC football-playing alumni Mike Neu (Ball State) and Thomas Hammock (Northern Illinois) are in their ninth and sixth years at their respective schools still. There are other coaches that have varying levels of MAC and midwest experience at other schools, but overwhelmingly, we’re talking about a league that has so many head coaches with decades worth of knowledge and experience for their specific MAC school. And that alone, I think, make this conference way more enticing to watch this season.
I went through all of the MAC teams’ schedules and selected winners and losers for each contest. Below are my full seasons’ picks, from first to last place.
MAC champion: Toledo
Every July I have to try to come up with new ways to quickly sell you on why this Toledo team will actually get the job done. Sure, the joke’s grown a little bit stale ever since Jason Candle won his second MAC crown in 2022 and his Rockets fought its way back to the MAC championship game last year… only to lose to the RedHawks without its studded quarterback.
Still, Toledo’s just damn good under Candle. Will they win 11 games again? As tough as that may be without Dequan Finn, I don’t think Toledo’s all of a sudden worse off because of his transfer to Baylor. I, for one, know all too well that Toledo’s been preparing for Finn’s departure for a long time. QB Tucker Gleason, back when he was at Plant HS in Tampa, Fla., was a state-championship-winning player for Rob Weiner, who was hired by Toledo in 2020 to be their QB coach. I think they’ll be just fine at the position.
As for all of the other 21 positions, well, sorry to sound like a broken record but it’s Toledo, they’ll have talent.
ON THE SCHEDULE: Mississippi State is the only true loss I have picked on Toledo’s schedule. The Toledo-Miami game is in the Glass Bowl, where Candle has a 37-9 record. Toledo also has Bowling Green at home. Unless Northern Illinois steps up this year (more on that later), those are probably the two hardest conference games for Toledo’s regular season. Losing the East/West splits means there’s no game against Western Michigan this year.
MAC runner-up: Miami
In 2019 when Brett Gabbert was a true freshman winning the MAC crown, did anybody think he’d still be in Oxford, Ohio in the year 2024? In a year where the transfer portal and NIL opportunities are all over the country for him? Now, his ongoing injury concerns are, well, concerning. But is him still being on the roster a problem if he’s able to perform?
Miami, to me, has been hitting such consistent strides with its best quarterback since Ben Roethlisberger in and out of seasons with leg injuries. In a time where quarterbacks can totally make or break seasons, this program knows how to win with or without Gabbert in the lineup. This team is clearly much better with him (and other necessary surrounding features for a scoring offense) than without, and I expect this team to still figure out how to win when it counts in the MAC. But Miami doesn’t have the turn-key operation Toledo does, and the transfer losses of Gage Larvadain and Rashad Amos might be a marginal enough difference to matter on the field.
ON THE SCHEDULE: Opening up the year with Toledo is obviously pivotal to how the rest of the season could go for this team. Then to close, Miami has to finish the year with against a steadily-rising Bowling Green team that looks as tough as any team you’ll find in this league, and it’s a road game at that. If Miami finishes strong with NIU at home and BG on the road in its final two games, I don’t see many other chances for the RedHawks to be tripped up this conference season.
Tied for second, staying home: Western Michigan
When Western Michigan was 2-6 last year and the path to a bowl-eligible season was seemingly do-able at the time, I started to picture how the Broncos would end up catapulting its way into the MAC championship picture. Despite the team’s 4-8 finish, I still think Lance Taylor is working these Broncos in a good direction — and it helps that he’s doing his part on the recruiting trail. The Broncos have the #2 ranked freshman signing class in the MAC, and that’s highlighted by QB J.D. Davis II, who apparently had a very strong spring season.
WMU lost long-while defensive coordinator Lou Esposito. I don’t think he’s irreplaceable, but he was certainly one of the most important people at WMU since he showed up in 2017, which is why he’s found himself at Michigan today. Losing a second head coach, basically, has its ramifications, but WMU’s still got plenty of talent to help mask that problem this year.
ON THE SCHEDULE: Opening up the year at Wisconsin would be a little bit more exciting if WMU didn’t have to chase the Badgers with the Buckeyes of Ohio State for Weeks 1 & 2. But the MAC season opens up well for WMU. But the back-half could get dicey, especially if NIU (at WMU, Week 11 on a Wednesday) hits its stride offensively and Bowling Green (at BG, Week 12 just six days later) is as tough as I think they can be. The CMU rivalry is in Mt. Pleasant, and EMU at home is the regular season finisher. I have WMU as my sweeping winner to take home the Michigan MAC trophy this year, but a loss to Bowling Green in Week 12 followed by an eventual Miami win at BG in Week 14 would be the difference between two teams that finished with 7-1 records in MAC play.
My final MAC standing finishes are as follows:
Toledo (11-1 overall, 8-0 MAC)
Miami OH (9-3 overall, 7-1 MAC)
Western Michigan (9-3 overall, 7-1 MAC)
Bowling Green (7-5 overall, 5-3 MAC)
Eastern Michigan (8-4 overall, 5-3 MAC)
Buffalo (4-8 overall, 3-5 MAC)
Northern Illinois (5-7 overall, 3-5 MAC)
Ohio (5-7 overall, 3-5 MAC)
Akron (3-9 overall, 2-6 MAC)
Ball State (3-9 overall, 2-6 MAC)
Kent State (3-9 overall, 2-6 MAC)
Central Michigan (3-9 overall, 1-7 MAC)
Bowling Green
From the end of last season through early spring, I was really vibing with BG as my preseason favorite team heading into this year. For real. I couldn’t take this program’s progress seriously before, but now I’m here for the Falcons to really do some impressive work.
And with the MAC schedule it has, the work will certainly need to be impressive to get to Detroit.
While I dig that Scot Loeffler’s gotten Bowling Green to be a very competitive MAC team that found ways to improve through tough times, I’m never going to be sold on what he’s got going on at quarterback. It’s really good for BG that they have both Connor Bazelak and Camden Orth returning, I’m not really sold on either of them being top-3 MAC QBs. (Maybe old friend Baron May can help BG out in that regard?)
I actually really like Bowling Green though. I still think the team has collectively been playing good football over the last couple of seasons, and the defense is definitely going to be a strength with multi-year All-MAC award-winning safety CJ Brown in from NIU.
ON THE SCHEDULE: The BG-NIU series might be a rock fight, and I give the edge to NIU having maybe the best running back in the conference, and winning an important game in BG’s house. Losing later to Toledo would be the nail in the coffin before the actual nail in the coffin (Miami, Week 14). While the NIU loss could look back to be a regrettable loss, I don’t think BG winning 34-10 at Kalamazoo in last year’s finisher was a fluke; BG beating WMU this year would make it three in a row for the series.
Eastern Michigan
Who knows if EMU’s going to have what it takes this year to improve on last year’s 6-7 finish? If so, it’ll hinge on the fates of so many new transfers and freshman to help fix the image around Ypsilanti. Some familiar faces will be back (especially defense and special teams) but new quarterback, new running back cast, some new receivers, new O-linemen, new linebackers, all kinds of new players that you can think of will have to make an impact right away. Not only will they have to play good football, but they’ll all have to click and be on the same page right away.
It’s not impossible, but it’s just dang difficult to pull off.
EMU played its worst offense last season, and having Cole Snyder in from Buffalo should be an immediate improvement over Austin Smith last season. But will the change lead to more wins at the end of the year? I think EMU can end up playing comfortably above the bottom-half of the MAC this year, but maybe not so well to punch a ticket to Ford Field in December.
ON THE SCHEDULE: Having Miami and Toledo both on the schedule this year are very tough outs if the transfer-heavy roster isn’t prepared for them. The good luck of those draws is they at least both have to play at Rynearson Stadium, but EMU’s going to have to show me something on the field before I can believe in them surpassing either of those two. I picked EMU over Ohio at Peden Stadium, but I’m admittedly holding my breathe on that one.
Buffalo
First-year head coach Pete Lembo is back in the MAC leading this Buffalo team. I’m pretty big on the hire personally, but that doesn’t mean I think Buffalo’s just going to benefit from Lembo’s bag of magic beans that he keeps in his pockets. Buffalo, which is in a better spot having gone through the coaches of Lance Leipold and Maurice Linguist, could take off in a hurry. It’s not like Linguist’s Buffalo roster up and followed him to Alabama when he took the co-defensive coordinating job. Buffalo’s got some good pieces on its roster, but how’s this team going to look when they all looked so “meh” last year?
ON THE SCHEDULE: I’m giving Buffalo wins over Ohio and Akron in back-to-back weeks, and later a home win over Ball State. But, again, I need to see something out of this team before I can give this team any more blind faith than I already have.
Northern Illinois
I know for certain that NIU can run the heck out of the ball. I say with great certainty that NIU’s defense will show up in tight games. And I know dang well that Thomas Hammock will dial up some plays with some super clever designs to them with complete confidence.
But is NIU going to elevate past its 7-6 mark last year? NIU was a 3-9 team in 2022 that started 1-5 last year. This team is capable of biting somebody in the ass at any point, but usually it’s its own.
ON THE SCHEDULE: I think the early Buffalo game will be very telling, and a win over BG could look very good early on in the year. But NIU has to go through Toledo (at home) and Miami (on the road), and will finish the season at home against CMU, which I have the Chippewas winning. Thomas Hammock is 0-2 against CMU at home, and neither of those games were particularly close (40-10 in 2020, 35-22 in 2022).
Ohio
Ohio might’ve had the least-impressive 10-win season I’ve seen in a while. Without Kurtis Rourke and so many of the important players that helped Ohio have a 20-7 record over the last two seasons back, any roster concerns I already expressed about EMU can basically be copy-and-pasted right here. Sure, the coaching will be great and the football will be fine because of it. But this is a new-looking Bobcats team, and I can’t feel too confident in them at this point.
ON THE SCHEDULE: There are a lot of beatable opponents in the MAC schedule, but the Bobcats have to take heavy pills with road trips to Miami (Week 8) and Toledo (Week 13, on a Wednesday), and half of its MAC opponents will be coming off of their respective bye weeks. (Sure, three of those byes are the ‘two added days off because of midweek MACtion scheduling’, but those are still important advantages for Ohio’s opponents.)
Akron
Akron’s gone 2-10 in each of the last three seasons. This season’s quest is to find a third win. Don’t tell me how you do it, just find me an Akron that goes 3-9 instead please.
ON THE SCHEDULE: At Ohio (sure), versus Bowling Green (no), at Western Michigan (nope), versus Eastern Michigan (no), versus Buffalo (no), at NIU (tipsy-turvy series lately, let’s have fun and say yes to Akron here), Wagon Wheel at Kent (*flips coin*, no), and versus Toledo (no).
Ball State
Ball State’s such a rough place to win at, an injury at *tight end* changed the entire way the offense played last year, but they did well enough to put Toledo in a very tough position that a lot of people casually forget about. Ball State’s steadily declined ever since its Covid-year MAC championship run, and I wonder how much longer that decline will last. If Ball State can show some slight improvements on both sides of the ball, I don’t think this will be an uncompetitive team in the MAC by any stretch.
ON THE SCHEDULE: The Cardinals dodge Toledo but get some tough home games with WMU, NIU, Miami, and BGSU all going to Scheumann Stadium. There’s not a single home MAC game that looks easy for Ball State, which is unfortunate.
Kent State
This is a league of consistency, remember? Akron and Kent State are in very similar boats all the time, so let’s copy + paste the above logic here as well. I’m hoping that the Flashes actually build on the starters it was able to keep this year under second-year coach Kenni Burns, but I think I’m being very generous with my season pick of giving this team two conference wins after winning zero FBS games last year.
ON THE SCHEDULE: Those two MAC wins? After an 0-6 start, I give Kent its revenge game against Akron (led most of last year’s game before an utter collapse at the end), and the season finale against Buffalo on the road.
Central Michigan
I probably have CMU way too low on here, but I don’t totally know 1. how much improvement CMU saw on its roster this offseason, and 2. if it’ll be able to beat its MAC schedule even if it did have a slightly improved roster from last season. CMU tends to have better pieces (especially on defense) in the season than expected at this time of year, but I still don’t currently see the difference-makers to change my opinion for how its season will go.
ON THE SCHEDULE: Mike Neu hasn’t lost at CMU since 2016, and even that was just a 24-21 finish, so I take CMU to lose its MAC home opener. Ohio at home and EMU on the road are next in MAC play, but from there it just gets way more difficult for the Chippewas — at Miami, Toledo, and NIU, home to BG and WMU.