Week 12 MACtion Power Rankings & Playing for secondary goals
Bowl eligibility + the Michigan MAC trophy are both still on the line in these final two games of the regular season.
Ever since Eastern Michigan’s emotional comeback victory against Central Michigan, this season has just taken a nosedive. EMU (5-5 overall, 2-4 MAC) is riding a three-game losing streak, and hopes of reaching a MAC Championship game for once are a thing of the past. Its 5-2 record has turned to 5-5, and a bowl game didn’t seem as much of a slam-dunk guarantee as it did back in early October.
EMU’s got Buffalo on Wednesday, then finishes the regular season at Western Michigan next Saturday. If EMU wins one of those, it’ll be bowl-eligible for the seventh time in the Chris Creighton era. If EMU wins the regular season finale, it’d be a clean-sweeping victory for the Michigan MAC for the second time under Creighton — first achieved in 2022.
The primary goal of winning a league title is out of play, but some other trophies are still on the table.
None of what’s left is out of reach, but I’ve been struggling to identify a healthy pulse on this team all year long. The non-conference play was rocky, and the Kent State game showed that this team had its vulnerabilities on the field. But after a bye week with Miami in town, Rynearson Stadium was so quiet I could hear somebody coughing across the field. From the sidelines to the stands, this team has lacked juice and energy, and it’s shown up on the scorebook.
This team is fortunate that it came back to beat CMU because it did not have the same turnaround at Akron. The Toledo game might’ve been lost at the very end of the game by 1 point, but EMU made a handful of mistakes that could’ve otherwise turned that into a double-score victory.
Then against Ohio, in the first game with the main goal off the table, EMU’s offense turned the ball over four times (three interceptions, one fumble) and gave up three scoring drives of 75 yards or longer.
It’s been a rough, rough conference season for the Eagles.
I'm speaking just for myself here, but maybe I’m not alone on this hill. A bowl game berth, and maybe even a second bow victory in Creighton's 11th season, wouldn't impress me much at this point. These aren’t the games EMU needed to win for me to view things as a major success with this group. I recognize that a bowl game certainly gives some players extra opportunities to play and practice more to get ready for the 2025 season, but it’s not like bowl games are always full of the same starters (or backups) we all grew to know and recognize.
Seriously, I’m not trying to be an old crank at the very ripe and good-looking age of 32. I really, really do not know how to gauge bowl game performances in this day in age. Tons of seniors and NFL hopefuls sit out, guys leave via transfer portal, and I imagine that it sometimes leads to more headaches than celebrations for these teams to prepare for these bowl games.
For the players that do play in the bowl games, there are no guarantees about what changes EMU’s roster will see between now and next season. Even if EMU winds up looking like the most excited 5-5 team in the country these last few weeks, I’d still have my doubts on whether or not any of that would be able to carry over into 2025.
If this were a team that was continuously in tight battles in its losses and winning some good games throughout its conference season, I think I’d have a much different tone to this discussion. But in four MAC losses this year, only two of them were one-score games. And if EMU wants to show that things are looking better, losing games to Akron probably won’t help win over the court of public opinion.
But who cares about public opinion?
Who cares about my opinion?
Truly, I hope players are too concerned with their own thoughts and feelings about their season to pay any attention to me on this matter, and I truly hope EMU fans can ignore my stubbornness and throw a really fun party if their favorite team gets to play an extra game this winter.
At this point, if EMU’s players want to reach a bowl game and get a postseason victory in December, then that’s up to them. It was up to them when things were looking good in September and they had a lot to celebrate over, and it’ll be up to them to finish the year, well, however they choose to.
Until those victories are felt, and until EMU plays like some head-turners, I don’t blame anybody who made the mental flip to being in basketball mode after the Ohio loss.
MAC Football Power Rankings through Week 12
Miami OH (6-4, 5-1 MAC | Last week’s ranking: 1) — Miami handled Kent State as it should at home, as it should.
Bowling Green (6-4, 5-1 MAC | LW: 2) — All told, the 31-13 win over Western Michigan was a pretty clean one for BGSU. TE Harold Fannin had 137 of the team’s 176 receiving yards. RB Terion Stewart rushed for 150 yards on 15 carries. QB Connor Bazelak had no interceptions. BG’s sticking to its script and is in good position to end the season in Detroit.
Western Michigan (5-5, 4-2 MAC | LW: 3) — Western Michigan, of course, can get got in the pass game, but I’m surprised by how iffy the offense can look at times. Jalen Buckley’s obviously really good, but consistency’s been an issue for the Broncos.
Ohio (6-3, 4-1 MAC | LW: 4) — Handled EMU just fine, and now it has won three in a row, all by substantial amounts; Ohio’s outscored Buffalo, Kent State, and EMU 135-26. Yowza.
Toledo (7-3, 4-2 MAC | LW: 5) — Handled Central Michigan, as it should. A 20-point second quarter almost took the soul out of CMU, and will have a true challenge this week with Ohio coming to town.
Buffalo (6-4, 4-2 MAC | LW: 6) — Buffalo’s doing better than what a lot of people in the national media assumed it’d do at this point in the year. This team isn’t going berserk on anybody, but it’s played competitively this MAC season (minus the Ohio game) and could very well finish with a winning record in the first season of a coaching change. But I just call that the Pete Lembo special.
Northern Illinois (6-4, 3-3 MAC | LW: 8) — NIU got busy with 17 points in the first quarter to finish with 29 on the day. But anybody who watched this game on TV knows that they didn’t watch the game at all. With all the rain that downpoured to affect the cameras’ views, NIU-Akron looked like a mirage.
Ball State (3-7, 2-4 MAC | LW: 7) — Fired Mike Neu after losing to Pete Lembo’s Buffalo Bulls. That gave me the shivers, not going to lie. Ball State lost a lot of games under Neu’s watch (40-63, 2020 MAC Champions), but his teams didn’t play a lot of bad or incompetent football, either. In nine seasons, things definitely could’ve been worse. I get that Neu’s time was simply up at that point and Ball State’s still so far away from where it needs to be to get to regional relevancy. That’s hardly Neu’s fault, Lembo quit on BSU back in 2015 (and took a paycut!) because BSU was not taking care of his team the way it needed to be taken care of. Neu will turn 54 next month; hopefully somebody 20 years younger can bring some bright ideas to Muncie and string together a fun team to watch.
Eastern Michigan (5-4, 2-3 MAC | LW: 9) — Vibes aren’t great. A good start to the year should help EMU get to bowl eligibility, but this second-half of the season has been a headache.
Akron (2-6, 1-3 MAC | LW: 10) — Had Akron not held on and beat EMU, we’d be talking about a Zips squad that’s riding a 7-game losing streak. I’ll say this though, these Zips aren’t lying on their backs and getting rolled over. The worst MAC loss Akron’s suffered this year was a 30-10 final at Ohio.
Central Michigan (3-7, 1-5 MAC | LW: 11) — Lost 5 in a row after it won two games by a combined four points.
Kent State (0-10, 0-6 MAC | LW: 12) — For the first time all season, Kent State had a lead during its game against Miami. I don’t remember what happened after that though. Probably nothing.
