How did the MAC get so bad???

[Schadenfreude]

Some of our greatest players were from a long way away. Omar Jacobs, for example (Del Ray Beach, Fla.). We are always going to get a core group of players from the "State of Bowling Green," however Coach Clawson defines it. And we should try to own the State of Bowling Green as best we can. But we can't stop there. Our tradition of picking up a few players each year from Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, etc. strikes me as wise.

[SB-50]

There are 106 players listed on the website's roster. 14 of those players (13%) are from outside of the Big Ten/contiguous states. Schilz (LA area, Calif) and Geter (Miami, FL) are among those players. Obviously it's beneficial to recruit all states, but it's also expensive. I'm sure all MAC schools are in the same situation.

[daspollak]

I'm not saying that OSU, UM, or ND are taking away kids who would have went here, but Perdue, Indiana, and other less prestigious BCS schools are. If there was an abundance of talent in the are we would be able to get some quality kids who would want to play instead of sitting on a bench for 3 years at one of those schools. Now that there is less talent to go around we need to look outside the state and recruit against teams from the Sun Belt for players in their back yard. This makes it more difficult for the MAC to get good players.

[MACMAN]

and directing at that talent, there seems to be serious lack of youth football esp when compared to other regions in the USA

[Drago]

I think recruting the "state of Bowling Green" is a dumb plan. You have to get into areas where there is elite talent. We had a history of getting into Georgia,Florida, and California under Urban/Brandon. Also there was an effort to get into the Chicago area. One thing I was suprised with is that with Clausen having ties to Richmond, we should have brought in 2-3 players from that area for sure. I mean if there is enough talent for James Madison to beat Va Tech, then there is no reason not to be in that area.

[BGGrad01]

Regardless of where we recruit players, BG and other MAC schools need to place a strong emphasis on improving their defenses. BG and many other MAC schools have had the offensive talent to compete with the other mid-major conferences and pull the occassional upset of a BCS school, but the defenses have been painful to watch for the most part.

If you were putting together an "all-BG" defensive team from the last decade, how many players from the last half of the decade would make that team? Briggs is about all I can think of right now. Devon Parks was here from 2003-2006 and I'm sure I'm missing a couple guys, but most of the other guys on that team would come from the first half of the decade - Brandon Hicks, Ryan Wingrove, Chris Haneline, Khary Campbell, Mitch Hewitt, Jovon Burkes, Janssen Patton, Chad Long, Jason Morton, Keon Newson, etc. (A bunch of "State of BG" guys in there with 2 Georgia CB's.) We simply haven't had a good enough defense to rush the passer, stop the run, or play good enough coverage to force a QB to work in a while. When you're not good enough on 1 side of the ball (and most MAC schools aren't even close), then you aren't going to beat anybody. IMO, that's why the MAC is right there with the Sun Belt as the worst conference in I-A.

[iansportsdude7]

I just graduated from BGSU this past year and root as hard as anyone for BG athletics (in fact, I'm watching the BG/Marshall game on ESPN3 right now using a friend's AT&T password because Time Warner sucks), but I'm not going to let my BG homerism get in the way in my perspective here.

I moved down to North Carolina in May and have been right in the middle of ACC and Conference-USA country to sort of see how these other conferences operate. Now, the ACC is a BCS conference, so I'm going to ignore them for now and focus on Conference USA which has really impressed me down here. Even with big time programs like UNC, NC-State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Clemson, and South Carolina nearby, Conference USA programs continue to draw a ton of fans, generate a ton of interest, and get alot of talent on their roster compared to the MAC.

I think the main reason for this is that all of these programs are located in relatively large markets, and dominate those markets. Closest to me is East Carolina, a school with roughly 22,000 undergrads in a city with 80,000 residents. Not a huge market, but they own the entire eastern side of the state of North Carolina pretty much. They draw 45-50k fans at EVERY home game. Other schools in this conference: Central Florida (Orlando market), Houston (Houston market), Memphis (Memphis market), Tulane, (New Orleans), etc. The conference has 12 schools within 9 different states in major metro areas. If you look at schools in the WAC and Mountain west it is the same way.

The MAC has 6 schools in Ohio, 3 in Michigan, and Buffalo, Temple, Northern Illinois, and Ball State. Ohio and Michigan have great high school football, but its not so deep that they can feed all these teams top talent. Let's be serious here...top recruits in Ohio and Michigan are going to either Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State or Cincinnati. Top recruits in Illinois are typically located in Chicago and are going to Illinois, Northwestern, Notre Dame, or Wisconsin. You get the idea....I listed the markets before, an example of some of the markets in the MAC: Bowling Green, Athens, Kent, Oxford, Muncie, Dekalb, Ypsilanti, etc. It's hard for teams to recruit talent to these areas and to generate homegrown talent with so many large universities in such a small area. I love Bowling Green with all my heart, and I don't think its the students or the alumni that are really to blame for our bad attendance numbers. Look at where the school is located. People from Toledo are going to see Toledo (most likely). We have Bowling Green to Findlay and a bit of the Toledo Market. Can anyone really be surprised that our attendance numbers suck compared to some of these schools even outside of the BCS that are in cities and metro areas into the multi-millions?

Now, I started going to BG in 2006, after the MAC started going downhill so I don't really know how it has depreciated so much, but I can at least understand why it is inferior to many of the other conferences.

[iansportsdude7]

Another thing is how difficult it has been to get home and home series for MAC schools with BCS conference teams. It's always a HUGE deal when we can pull someone to play at the Doyt. The last two years were nice to get Minnesota and then Boise State (close enough), and I believe we have a couple more in the future, but when comparing to C-USA like I was, they play BCS schools at home all the time and don't really even think anything of it.

Examples this year:
ECU vs. NC State
Southern Miss vs. Kansas
UCF vs. NC State
Marshall vs. West Virginia
Memphis vs. Tennessee
Houston vs. Mississippi State
SMU vs. Washington State
SMU vs. TCU
Rice vs. Texas
Tulane vs. Mississippi

I haven't looked, but i have to assume that is a much better draw to that conference collectively than what we've been getting in the MAC as far as home games are concerned. A telling one is Texas playing AT rice. I couldn't even fathom Ohio State playing at the Doyt or at the Glass Bowl.

The MAC is just not an appealing conference for recruits or coaches anymore. Until something changes, the downward trend will continue.

[BGFalconfromCincy]

Another thing is how difficult it has been to get home and home series for MAC schools with BCS conference teams. It's always a HUGE deal when we can pull someone to play at the Doyt. The last two years were nice to get Minnesota and then Boise State (close enough), and I believe we have a couple more in the future, but when comparing to C-USA like I was, they play BCS schools at home all the time and don't really even think anything of it.

Examples this year:
ECU vs. NC State
Southern Miss vs. Kansas
UCF vs. NC State
Marshall vs. West Virginia
Memphis vs. Tennessee
Houston vs. Mississippi State
SMU vs. Washington State
SMU vs. TCU
Rice vs. Texas
Tulane vs. Mississippi

I haven't looked, but i have to assume that is a much better draw to that conference collectively than what we've been getting in the MAC as far as home games are concerned. A telling one is Texas playing AT rice. I couldn't even fathom Ohio State playing at the Doyt or at the Glass Bowl.

The MAC is just not an appealing conference for recruits or coaches anymore. Until something changes, the downward trend will continue.

Texas didn't play at Rice, they played at Reliant Stadium, while it was in the city that Rice is located in it was a Rice "home" game in name only, as it was mostly Texas fans in the place, just like last year when Toledo had a "home" game vs Ohio State at Cleveland Browns Stadium

[iansportsdude7]

Another thing is how difficult it has been to get home and home series for MAC schools with BCS conference teams. It's always a HUGE deal when we can pull someone to play at the Doyt. The last two years were nice to get Minnesota and then Boise State (close enough), and I believe we have a couple more in the future, but when comparing to C-USA like I was, they play BCS schools at home all the time and don't really even think anything of it.

Examples this year:
ECU vs. NC State
Southern Miss vs. Kansas
UCF vs. NC State
Marshall vs. West Virginia
Memphis vs. Tennessee
Houston vs. Mississippi State
SMU vs. Washington State
SMU vs. TCU
Rice vs. Texas
Tulane vs. Mississippi

I haven't looked, but i have to assume that is a much better draw to that conference collectively than what we've been getting in the MAC as far as home games are concerned. A telling one is Texas playing AT rice. I couldn't even fathom Ohio State playing at the Doyt or at the Glass Bowl.

The MAC is just not an appealing conference for recruits or coaches anymore. Until something changes, the downward trend will continue.

Texas didn't play at Rice, they played at Reliant Stadium, while it was in the city that Rice is located in it was a Rice "home" game in name only, as it was mostly Texas fans in the place, just like last year when Toledo had a "home" game vs Ohio State at Cleveland Browns Stadium

Ah I should have looked into that further. I assumed it was at the Rice stadium because I know their home stadium seats 50,000.