August 31st a big day for the MAC

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 12:05 am

The college football season officially kicks off on August 31st, and the MAC has a chance to open some eyes early on. Miami, Central Michigan and Kent State all are hosting BCS schools - on their own campus. Northwestern is at Miami, Boston College is at Central Michigan and Minnesota is at Kent State. It would be big for the MAC to win at least one of these games, and if I had to pick one, I’d probably say Miami over Northwestern. This is a good chance for the MAC to make a statement in some way. But think about this, a few years ago, it would be hard to imagine and season-opener schedule with three BCS schools on MAC campuses. How times have changed.

Also, on that same night, Toledo goes on the road to Iowa State in what could be a good game, and Ball State and Eastern Michigan play a conference game. While neither BSU or EMU are likely to be a factor in the MAC race (you never know – ex: Akron last year), playing a conference game in your season-opener makes for a very important game. Lastly, the Buffalo vs. Temple game is likely to produce more jokes that catchy headlines nationally, but it will be interesting to see how both teams play under their new head coaches and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see improvement out of both of these teams this year and in years to come.

moneymaker02 · Post by **moneymaker02** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 12:19 am

Also my 23rd b-day

BGFalconfromCincy · Post by **BGFalconfromCincy** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 12:57 am

hopefully Aug. 31 can be a statement day for the MAC, like the one Saturday back in 03 was

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:51 am

BGFalconfromCincy wrote:hopefully Aug. 31 can be a statement day for the MAC, like the one Saturday back in 03 was

That Saturday back in 2003 was just awesome!!! If BG could have beaten Ohio State that day too.......

MACMAN · Post by **MACMAN** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:20 am

I think Toledo could hedge out a win, as miami...

When do the Zips play PSU....it woud nice..yet wierd if they killed that giant...i would have to respect for more than just being a MAC program. yikes to fear a little and respect Akron..im not ready for taht but would wellcome it.

Overall in Week one...I see the MAc two to four or what will be refered to as upsets.

BGFalconfromCincy · Post by **BGFalconfromCincy** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 3:10 pm

MACMAN wrote:I think Toledo could hedge out a win, as miami...

When do the Zips play PSU....it woud nice..yet wierd if they killed that giant...i would have to respect for more than just being a MAC program. yikes to fear a little and respect Akron..im not ready for taht but would wellcome it.

Overall in Week one...I see the MAc two to four or what will be refered to as upsets.

Akron plays Penn State on that Saturday

jpfalcon09 · Post by **jpfalcon09** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 3:14 pm

That NW/Miami game is going to be very emotional with Walker's passing...it'll be interesting to see how that one plays out.

I see Toledo beating Iowa State...Amstutz always gets his team up for big OOC games. CMU will give BC all they want, Minny will romp on Kent, sadly. That EMU/Ball State game can go either way...my friend who goes to BSU said they expect good things out of the team after last year's 2nd half surge.

As for Buffalo/Temple...flip a coin. Hopefully the MAC can make some noise though.

redhawk95 · Post by **redhawk95** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 3:54 pm

jpfalcon09 wrote:That NW/Miami game is going to be very emotional with Walker's passing...it'll be interesting to see how that one plays out.

I see Toledo beating Iowa State...Amstutz always gets his team up for big OOC games. CMU will give BC all they want, Minny will romp on Kent, sadly. That EMU/Ball State game can go either way...my friend who goes to BSU said they expect good things out of the team after last year's 2nd half surge.

As for Buffalo/Temple...flip a coin. Hopefully the MAC can make some noise though.

before we heap too much praise on amstuft, let's not forget they were thrashed last year 44-14 by fresno and destroyed by kansas and minnesota the year before. yes, they beat pitt in 03, and traditional power utep

in last year's gmac which is always a mac beatdown of cusa, but other than that....

yes, the miami/northwestern game will be emotional. quite ironic that we open with them given coach walker's passing. believe it or not, he's actually miami's all-time winningest coach. given our coaching tradition, that's almost unfathomable.

i agree, big opening weekend for the mac with good tests for the league. we'll quickly see how deep the league is this year.

go redhawks!

TG1996 · Post by **TG1996** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 4:04 pm

redhawk95 wrote:yes, the miami/northwestern game will be emotional. quite ironic that we open with them given coach walker's passing. believe it or not, he's actually miami's all-time winningest coach. given our coaching tradition, that's almost unfathomable.

Not all THAT unfathomable, when you note that he coached 11 more games than anyone in Miami(OH) history, and next after that is over 20 games behind.

But still, I think it's going to be a somewhat (I can't think of the word..."surreal" isn't really right) atmosphere that day, with Walker being a Miami(OH) grad and all in addition to the coaching tenure.

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:34 pm

Miami has certainly had Northwestern's number over the last decade too. Miami crushed NW in 2003 with Big Ben 44-14 and beat them badly in 1999 by the score of 28-3, but the game Miami really put a dagger in Northwestern's season was in 1995 (I think) when, to the best of my memory, Miami stormed back in the 4th quarter and with the help of a bad punt (it was blocked, or went out of the end zone or something), handed NW its only regular season loss of the year. If I remember correctly, NW had just beaten Notre Dame in South Bend the week before and Miami turned around and beat NW the next week something like 30-28. All three of those games were in Evanston too. This year they get them in Oxford in what should be a very emotional game.

redhawk95 · Post by **redhawk95** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:47 pm

keep thy enemy close, eh boys?

you guys know your stuff! btw - was in bg last weekend for my sister's graduation. lot of construction on campus can only be a good thing. new athletic center (sebo, right?) at the doyt is coming along nicely. we've yet to break ground on ours so you're considerably ahead.

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:52 pm

redhawk95 wrote:keep thy enemy close, eh boys? you guys know your stuff! btw - was in bg last weekend for my sister's graduation. lot of construction on campus can only be a good thing. new athletic center (sebo, right?) at the doyt is coming along nicely. we've yet to break ground on ours so you're considerably ahead.

We're ahead in the end zone facility, but the recent renovations to your stadium are very nice. I love that videoboard tower, it looks awesome and I especially like the size of the videoboard that you can actually SEE! The new stands are nice and I like the new gates, ticket booths, etc. I've seen the renderings of the new fieldhouse and where it will go (at the stadium) and when that happens, it's going to be an awesome facility there at Miami. That's one thing I wish BG did was build the fieldhouse by the stadium, but it serves other purposes as well for why it stands where it does.

TG1996 · Post by **TG1996** » Thu Aug 10, 2006 8:42 pm

redhawk95 wrote:keep thy enemy close, eh boys? you guys know your stuff! btw - was in bg last weekend for my sister's graduation. lot of construction on campus can only be a good thing. new athletic center (sebo, right?) at the doyt is coming along nicely. we've yet to break ground on ours so you're considerably ahead.

I just looked it up on a hunch. I knew that Walker was at Miami(OH)

for awhile, and it seemed like alot of the other "famous" coaches were there for a much shorter period. I was actually a bit surprised that Bo and Woody coached there as long as they did!