MAC Opening Weekend

[bgsufalcon24]

= turd

Is it possible that the weekend could end and BG could have the only victory against a I-A opponent?

Army beating E.Mich 13-0 at half.
Ohio losing to Uconn 14-7 at half.
Western Mich rolled by Michigan.
Akron rolled by Penn State.
Ball State losing at home to North Texas.
Toledo rolled by Purdue...wait, that's a good thing.

And the other dissapointments. What a bad opening weekend. Maybe NIU or CMU will win later tonight, but I doubt it. This sure makes us look good.

[falconfan1999]

or it makes the rest of the MAC look really lame....

[Tricky_Falcon]

I don't care how strong or weak the MAC is the year, I just want to win it!

[bgsufalcon24]

Eastern Michigan loses to Army at home. Fricking Army.

They are so fricking worthless. I remember losing to them last year, I've never been in the pits as much after a sporting event as I was after that game. I know we've had some really disgusting games, like the GMAC Bowl vs Tulsa or Brandon's final fall against Buffalo last year, but that one against EMU is right up there.

On a better note, Buffalo is beating UTEP, so maybe somebody else will get a win.

Edit: I should point out that NIU fought pretty hard against Wisconsin before falling 28-20. They didn't win, but still fairly respectable.

[JH5]

It was a sad weekend for the MAC thats for sure.

I don't know how we stand though. Buffalo looked pretty good but I would say that Troy > UTEP. The fact that was the only other FBS team that the MAC beat this week either says something about the quality of our opponents or the quality of the MAC.

I'm not really sure which one it is but I have a strong feeling that the MAC is just really down this year. Akron is understandable because Penn State played really well and they're a legit top 10 team. NIU played really well against Wisconsin but even Wisconsin is in the lower half of the Big Ten (which is also down) this year. Michigan really impressed me; I think they can win 7 or 8 games this year but Western was projected as one of the top teams in the MAC this year and should have put on a better showing. Ohio played good and probably should have beat a down UConn team but at least they didn't look too bad. Buffalo had a good win against UTEP without that RB but how good is UTEP?

CMU, Ball State, Temple, Eastern, Miami, and Toledo are all inexcusable and those teams should have either won or put on a much better showing. Kent played okay but that was a game they should have and did win.

I can't figure out how good our win was or what it means towards the rest of the year. I would say Troy is better than Army, Kentucky, Villanova, North Texas, and maybe even Arizona and UConn so in terms of the MAC as a whole I think it was a very quality win for us but I could be wrong; maybe Troy isn't that good.

Next week will really tell us where we stand.

[jpfalcon09]

Buffalo was lucky to win. UTEP scored a late TD but it was called back on a hold, had the TD stood, they win. It's only the first week, but the MAC looked like garbage outside of BG. BG had the signature win of the conference and it was most convincing. BTW, since 2002, BG is the only MAC team to have a winning OOC record, at 14-12.

[MarkL]

Buffalo was lucky to win. UTEP scored a late TD but it was called back on a hold, had the TD stood, they win. It's only the first week, but the MAC looked like garbage outside of BG. BG had the signature win of the conference and it was most convincing. BTW, since 2002, BG is the only MAC team to have a winning OOC record, at 14-12.

Ouch. Not good. Add two straight winless bowl seasons.

Does this sound to anybody else like a conference that Dave Clawson and the Falcons can potentially OWN in the coming seasons?

[hammb]

Buffalo was lucky to win. UTEP scored a late TD but it was called back on a hold, had the TD stood, they win. It's only the first week, but the MAC looked like garbage outside of BG. BG had the signature win of the conference and it was most convincing. BTW, since 2002, BG is the only MAC team to have a winning OOC record, at 14-12.

Ouch. Not good. Add two straight winless bowl seasons.

Does this sound to anybody else like a conference that Dave Clawson and the Falcons can potentially OWN in the coming seasons?

Yes. I said it somewhere last week. If Clawson is the type of Head Coach I believe he can be, we should OWN this conference.

[bgsufalcon24]

The one game that surprised me most this weekend was Central Michigan-Arizona. The CMU held Arizona to only 17 points but lost by two scores. You'd think that with a defensive performance like that the Chips would've won that one easily. I just don't understand why CMU is so good in the MAC but can't win an OOC game to save their lives.

The most dissapointing performance of the week, IMO, was Ball State. Starting at home against a marginal at best North Texas squad and you lose by two scores? Ouch.

Speaking of our OOC record since 2002, I think that speaks volumes about the talent that we've been able to recruit into this program.

[Bleeding Orange]

There is little shame in losing to Arizona anymore, especially at Arizona. Over the past three to four years they have been a stellar defensive program, and they defend their home turf very, very well. I don't think their offense will ever get over the hump under Stoops, but they play some serious D.

In terms of the conference overall, I'm not too worried. There has been a lot of coaching turnover throughout the conference over the past few years, and that is inevitably going to lead to inconsistency. Based on our first game, it seems as though we just might have completely lucked out with Clawson, but nine times out of ten coaching turnover is going to breed instability. Kent and Akron are two that have me scratching my head, though. Brookhart has been at Akron for five years and Martin for four at Kent. A 31-7 loss to PSU isn't really that surprising, though I might have expected a bit more of a fight from the Zips, but an 18-0 win over Coastal Carolina is a complete embarrassment. To score TWO points in the first half is something much worse. And I've never had any idea what to make of Temple since they joined the conference.

We'll see how things go next week. I know that it is early and that we have all been waiting for this time of year, but I've gotten the feeling lately that people are trying to extrapolate expectations with very little evidence at hand. This was just the first week, and the next couple will tell us a lot, I'm sure.

[bgsufalcon24]

but I've gotten the feeling lately that people are trying to extrapolate expectations with very little evidence at hand..

BO, I totally agree here. It's hard to tell what the year is going to be like after just one week. I remember last year at this time expectations were sky high following our upset at Pittsburgh. Nobody foresaw losing to EMU and Miami at home, or anything like that. Now maybe with a new coaching staff at the helm, maybe we will play consistently as well as we did in Week 1 every week. But it's too early to tell on that.

We've got some people on here discussing the possibility of Gameday showing up if we win at Missouri. Knowing our fanbase as a whole many of these same people would be kicking up a sh*tstorm if we had been a 31-14 loser instead. I'm not going to take the bait and run hard one way or the other just yet.

[1987alum]

CMU, Ball State, Temple, Eastern, Miami, and Toledo are all inexcusable and those teams should have either won or put on a much better showing. Kent played okay but that was a game they should have and did win.

I can't figure out how good our win was or what it means towards the rest of the year. I would say Troy is better than Army, Kentucky, Villanova, North Texas, and maybe even Arizona and UConn so in terms of the MAC as a whole I think it was a very quality win for us but I could be wrong; maybe Troy isn't that good.

Next week will really tell us where we stand.

JH5 - you got it. We can't read too much into this first win. And, frankly, we can't write off some of the other MAC schools just because they flamed out in their opener. It's a long, long season.