Week 6 MACtion Power Rankings & the MAC's (non-)participation in Blood Week
Vanderbilt beat Alabama! That really happened!
As a college football lover, yesterday absolutely rocked. With Eastern Michigan’s bye week, I had no game to be at, nor did I have to sit there and focus on the actions during and between each and every snap of a game. A week off for the team is a week off for me. Staying on the couch was a full-time job for me yesterday. I even took two naps on the couch.
Could not have asked for a better day to sit on my ass all day.
It doesn’t happen every year, but Blood Week is always my favorite week of the year. Yesterday, #1 Alabama lost to Vanderbilt. Let me say that again, Alabama, the number one team in the nation, lost to Van-der-bilt. #4 Tennessee lost to Arkansas. #9 Missouri lost to #25 Texas A&M, two former SEC expansion-level schools. #10 Michigan lost to Washington, which was a Big Ten game. #11 USC lost to Minnesota, another Big Ten game. #22 Louisville downed by SMU in an ACC battle. #25 UNLV lost to Syracuse. Let’s throw James Madison in here for good measure too, which lost to UL-Monroe.
Seriously, Vanderbilt. Congrats. One of my favorite things about being a sports fan is always having the chance (even when there seems like none at all) to see something new for the first time. Loving sports means needing a chance to point at the television. I’ve never seen Vanderbilt beat Alabama before in my life.
That’s the sort of stuff that just fills you up with hope and optimism.
Blood spilled, and blood is what helps us remember what life can be worth staying alive for. Blood helps us remember why we should show love and compassion for each other, no matter how far, no matter how near, each step along the way. Blood is the cousin of tears, and there were certainly tears in Nashville. Tears of joy, tears of the Tide. The sky was falling when the sport was met with the transfer portal and conference realignments. Today, I can’t say that those changes didn’t help make Blood Week happen this time.
So cheers to Blood Week, and cheers to the systems that didn’t expect weeks like these to happen when they signed the bottom line. Cheers to October.
And cheers to the sport, always.
Ope — uh, so what were the MAC’s contributions to the holiday?
In four games on Saturday (five MAC teams on byes), Northern Illinois had to battle back from a 13-7 halftime deficit to beat UMass 34-20 at home. The Western Michigan-Ball State slopfest featured no defense (9+ yards per play for each team), a lot of turnovers (2 interceptions by Ball State and 2 total fumbles lost), and finished with 87 total points (45-42, Western’s way). Bowling Green almost fell victim to Akron during Blood Week (won 27-20 instead), but a last-minute, third-and-goal pass from Ben Finley hit his tight end in the helmet, so that was great. And in the MAC Championship rematch between Toledo and Miami, the Rockets handled business (30-20) while Miami looked like a non-contender.
The MAC gained some attention earlier in the year with NIU’s defeat over Notre Dame (the school’s first win over a top-5 team; also, Vanderbilt was 0-60 vs. top-5 teams before beating Bama last night) and Toledo’s win at Mississippi State. Still important wins for them, but those moments didn’t carry into yesterday’s sport-wide celebration. The games yesterday had their intrigue, but not for the non-MAC heads.
The MAC’s stuck in a lifetime-long struggle for national and cultural relevancy, and being left out on sacred days like yesterday is simply a bummer for those who want so much good to happen to the conference. Toledo and NIU were recently invited to go to the Mountain West as football members only. I’ve yet to see a campaign from either fan base saying that they have to obviously what’s best for the two schools. For better or worse, this sport and the leagues we adore so much are changing right in front of our very eyes. We may hate these headlines and realities as the news comes, but we can always find new ways of appreciating things we might not have wanted to see change in the first place.
So it’s conflicting. The MAC’s a model of consistency in the college landscape, and that’s sorely missed in a lot of spaces. The MAC’s model of consistency means that MAC schools are being asked to join other mid-major conferences and not the other way around.
Blood Week is internet slang that came from the Shutdown Fullcast podcast, and it means something to fans that subscribe to the term. It’s like the Red Wedding episode of college football: everybody dies that day, and it’s not a particularly quiet time for those deaths. Does the MAC need to be included (positively) in Blood Week to be a better conference? I desperately want to say no, but at this point it’d be a nice change around here. It’d be nice for the MAC to have a nationally-staged upset and the best joke not to be “haha, Northern Illinois sounds like a credit union,” but that’s what a lot of people ended up taking away from the biggest upset in NIU’s history. Maybe it’s poor timing, but I do wonder how much better the jokes could’ve been if that win would’ve happened yesterday and not four weeks ago. I wonder if part of the MAC, even without having to shed much blood at all, died a little bit on Blood Week.
MAC Football Power Rankings through Week 6
Only four games this weekend with five teams having the Saturday off. Obviously, that makes things a little bit harder for me to slide anybody up or down, but I’m sure that’ll change very soon.
Toledo (4-1, 1-0 MAC | Last week’s rank: 1) — Toledo has played like the best team in the MAC and deserves to stay up top as the league’s clear #1 team. If I did my rankings in tiers, Toledo would be alone in the top tier for simply having the best resume.
Bowling Green (2-3, 1-0 MAC | LW: 2) — After barely beating Akron, I don’t know what to think about this Bowling Green squad. Are they the team that scared the socks off of Penn State, or are they the team that nearly saw the Akron game go to overtime? Are they the team that hung with Texas A&M, or are they the team that can’t get past Old Dominion at home?
Buffalo (3-2, 1-0 MAC | LW: 3) — No game. Up next, UB will host Toledo for an ESPNU nooner. Plan accordingly.
Eastern Michigan (4-1, 1-0 MAC | LW: 5) — No game. EMU has Miami at home this coming weekend. Even if Miami isn’t as big and bad as everybody (myself included) assumed they’d be coming into the year, this is still a major test for the Eagles to show if they’re going to be MAC championship contenders or not this season.
Northern Illinois (3-2, 0-1 MAC | LW: 4) — Stank up the joint at home yet again, but at least NIU pulled out the win over UMass. While the Notre Dame win is still a resume booster and the one-point loss at NC State isn’t the worst bruise to wear, NIU’s one-dimensional offense got away with having to fight back from a deficit to UMass. I don’t love constantly using UMass like a punching bag here, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
Ohio (3-2, 1-0 MAC | LW: 6) — No game. The Bobcats will travel to Central Michigan for their next game. Last year the Bobcats won 34-20 at home, the first Bobcats win over CMU since 2011.
Western Michigan (2-3, 1-0 MAC | LW: 7) — Let Ball State stay in the game probably longer than necessary. Hayden Wolff had an efficient passing day (26 of 29), but that defense needs some work. Love a high-scoring game, but winning by three points over a team that had three turnovers won’t move the needle much here.
Miami OH (1-4, 0-1 MAC | LW:8) — Brett Gabbert was a 50% passer against Toledo (23/46, 296 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT) and boy was it a miserable 50%. Tons of overthrows, even if his target was the 6’4” Reggie Virgil. Solid defense and all, but Miami’s probably off to its worst start possible.
Central Michigan (3-2, 1-0 MAC | LW: 9) — No game. In the team’s last two home games, CMU beat Ball State by 3 and San Diego State by 1. CMU looks best when it plays teams that are already pretty bad. And even then I’ve got to see bigger scoring margins than that to trust CMU’s a threat to anybody’s schedule.
Ball State (1-4, 0-2 MAC | LW: 10) — Ball State’s got a pulse, and that was nice to see against Western Michigan. The problem is that WMU also had a pulse, and Ball State’s barely built up any home momentum with a 42-34 win over Missouri State to hang its hat on; the Cards just got back home after being outscored 162-41 in its three-game road trip (all losses), and now it has to play two more road games: to Kent State and to the team that beat Alabama.
Akron (1-5, 0-2 MAC | LW: 11) — The second half of the BG game is the most Akron football I’ve watched all year. I think the offense has some decent pieces and Finley seems like he’s a fit at quarterback, but now they need to finish games.
Kent State (0-5, 0-1 MAC | LW: 12) — No game. Again, I don’t hate how Kent State played against EMU last week, I’m still somewhat impressed from some things I saw with them. I just don’t know if I’ve seen enough to get them out of the basement yet.