Okay, that may be overstating things a bit but the MAC is currently experiencing what could arguably be considered the conference's best season since the 2003 campaign when the MAC knocked off five nationally- ranked teams and posted three wins over the Big Ten including a 28-24 victory by Bowling Green over Northwestern in the Motor City Bowl.

 

So far this season, following Western Michigan's 23-17 win over Illinois Saturday, the MAC has registered a record four wins against the Big Ten and have posted victories six times against BCS teams:

 

 

 

A little national TV and an eye-catching win over one of last season's Rose Bowl participants brought the MAC some further recognition by the voters in this week's polls.

 

Ball State continues to move up in both polls, moving up two spots in both the AP Poll to 14th and 16th in the USA Today Coaches Poll. The Cardinals' latest move up comes on the heels of their nationally televised 45-14 victory over Northern Illinois this past week on ESPN2.

 

The Cardinals also made a nice move up in the weekly BCS Standings, moving up three spots from 17th last week to 14th in this week's release.

 

Western Michigan, fresh off its 23-17 win over Illinois, received votes in both polls for the first time this season. WMU earned six votes in the AP Poll placing them 31st this week. The Broncos actually leap-frogged Central Michigan in the AP Poll after the Chips received one vote last week and five votes this week, putting the Chippewas at 32nd.

 

The Broncos also received five votes in the USA Today Coaches poll, good enough for 32nd.

 

 


 

 

 

 

Quick Take: Buffalo maintained its top spot in the MAC East with a 37-17 victory over Miami this past Tuesday. The Bulls never trailed in the contest and opened up a 21-10 lead by halftime. The RedHawks briefly closed the gap to 21-17 early in the third quarter on freshman RB JR Taylor's three-yard touchdown before Bulls' tailback James Starks answered with the first of his two second-half rushing touchdowns on a one-yard score. Starks later finished off the contest's scoring with a 62-yard touchdown run with just over two minutes remaining to put the game out of reach, sealing the victory for the Bulls.

 

Notable:
**The game was the first-ever nationally televised contest from UB Stadium with ratings from the ESPN2 telecast scoring a solid 5.1 in the Buffalo area, making the game the most watched non-election night program on cable locally according to Time Warner Cable.

** It was the first Buffalo victory in eleven meetings in the series between the Bulls and the RedHawks.

**Also with the victory, the Bulls moved above the .500 mark for the first time in November since moving up to 1A.

 

Quotable:
** "I know a lot of guys on that Miami team, but we finally got a win. They're all big games now, the next one is even bigger.” Buffalo QB Drew Willy.

** "We've turned the corner and it's a big win for our program." Buffalo head coach Turner Gill.

** "Buffalo is a good football team. They've got a bunch of kids who have played a lot of football." Miami head coach Shane Montgomery.

Quick Take: Akron kept pace with Buffalo atop the MAC East with a 47-30 victory over Toledo Wednesday night at the Rubber Bowl. The win sets up a Nov 13 meeting in the final game at the Rubber Bowl against Buffalo with first place in the MAC East on the line. The Zips never trailed in their contest against Toledo, jumping out to a 21-0 first half lead on a pair of TD passes from Chris Jacquemain and a blocked punt returned for at touchdown by Aaron Williams. The Rockets however rallied to close to within 26-23 but the Zips finished the game by scoring 21 unanswered points to put the game away.

 

Notable:
**With 153 yards rushing against Toledo, Zips RB Dennis Kennedy passed the 2,000 yard career rushing mark. Kennedy has rushed for 612 yards, averaging 204 yards per game, in his last three outings.

**Akron QB Chris Jacquemain has now thrown at least one touchdown in each of his last ten games.

**Toledo PK Alex Steigerwald converted a 28-yard field goal in the first quarter and is now 34-of-38 (.895) for his career. The NCAA’s all-time leader is UCLA’s John Lee, who made 79-of-92 attempts (.859).

Quotable:
**“It was a good win for us. We had to get this one to set up the game against Buffalo a first place showdown.” Akron QB Chris Jacquemain.

** "This is a good victory especially coming off those days off. We wanted to come into this second season 1-0 and that is what we did.” Akron RB Dennis Kennedy on the team's 17-day lay-off between games..

** “We are going to keep our heads up and play hard these last three games. I am still doing every thing I can to only focus on these last three ball games. I still believe in my players and I am still behind them all the way.” Outgoing Toledo head coach Tom Amstutz.

 

Quick Take: The game was billed as a matchup between MAC powers featuring one of the MAC's top offenses against the league's top defense. Instead the Cardinals turned it into their own personal coming out party on national TV.  Ball State jumped out to a 21-0 halftime lead, never trailed in the contest and rolled to an easy 45-14 win that kept them undefeated and moved them into a first-place tie atop the MAC West with Central Michigan. Ball State QB Nate Davis accounted for five touchdowns, passing for four and rushing for another TD.

 

Notable:
**Ball State QB Nate Davis tied his career single-game high with five touchdowns.

**Cardinals WR Louis Johnson had a career high 165 yards receiving.

**BSU RB MiQuale Lewis became the first player in the MAC to pass the 1,000 yard rushing mark this season with 119 yards rushing against the Huskies. Lewis now has 1,108 yards rushing on the season.

 

Quotable:
** ""We practiced hard all week. We got some time off, everybody was rested, and everything clicked." Ball State QB Nate Davis.

**"“I just think he threw BBs tonight. I don’t think it mattered who was covering him, I just think he’s that good. He was on target about every time he threw the ball. He just put on a tremendous show.” NIU head coach discussing Nate Davis' performance.

** "No question we wanted to start fast. We took the ball at the start and I thought it was important for us to show confidence in the guys on offense." Ball State head coach Brady Hoke.

 

Quick Take: The Broncos delivered the MAC its fourth win over the Big Ten this season by dispatching Illinois 23-17 at Ford Field in Detroit Saturday. Both of Western Michigan's touchdowns in the contest were set up by its defense. Trailing 7-6 in the second quarter, the Broncos' Londen Fryar intercepted Illini QB Juice Williams with the Broncos capitalizing on the turnover when QB Tim Hiller connected with Robert Arnheim for a touchdown to put the Broncos up 13-7. Later in the second quarter EJ Biggers also came up with an interception and returned the ball 44-yards to the Illini 44-yard line leading to another Tim Hiller scoring strike, this time to Jamarko Simmons as the Broncos cruised into halftime up 20-7. The Illini added a fourth-quarter touchdown and mounted a threat but were thwarted on four consecutive pass attempts at the WMU 18-yard line, turning the ball over on downs with forty-eight seconds remaining.

 

Notable:
**WMU WR Jamarko Simmons had 11 receptions to become the Broncos' all-time career leader in receptions with 239, surpassing Greg Jennings' career mark of 238 catches.

**Broncos' QB Tim Hiller passed for three touchdowns, the 21st time in his career that he has passed for two or touchdowns in a game.

**Brandon West now owns the new all-time school mark at WMU of 5,194 all-purpose yards, breaking Greg Jennings' record of 5,093 yards.
 

Quotable:
** ""A lot of these kids (in the MAC) don't have offers from the Big Ten and I think they get a little bit of a chip on their shoulder. I know our kids get up for these games pretty good." Western Michigan head coach Bill Cubit.
** "This is definitely the best win I have been involved in as a Bronco." Broncos WR Jamarko Simmons.
** "We didn't come out and play in the first thirty minutes like we had to play (to win). We played a good team." Illinois head coach Ron Zook.
 

Quick Take: The Falcons moved back to the .500 mark and within one game of bowl eligibility with a dominating 28-3 victory on the road over the Bobcats Saturday. The Falcons never trailed, leading 14-0 by halftime on a pair of touchdown passes; one from QB Tyler Sheehan and one to Sheehan when the BG QB caught a pass from Andrew Beam. Beam also ran for a score in the third quarter while Sheehan added his third touchdown on a pass to Marques Parks in the third quarter. Ohio was held to 228 yards in total offense was 1-3 in the red zone.

 

** Bowling Green did not allow a touchdown for the first time since shutting out Western Michigan 52-0 on November 6, 2004.

** The Falcons had a season-high four sacks, led by senior Erique Dozier who had 1.5 quarterback sacks.

** For the first time this season, Ohio had fewer penalties (six) than its opponent (seven).

 

Quotable:
** "We did everything we talked about during the week that we needed to do. We played great defense, virtually shutting them out." Bowling Green head coach Gregg Brandon.

** "On both sides of the ball, we were too inconsistent to really get anything done. You cannot be a team that makes a couple plays and then has a couple breakdowns. That seemed to be what it was for us today." Ohio head coach Frank Solich.

** "We wanted to put together a full four quarters and execute the way we know we can. We felt like we achieved that through the four quarters. We didn’t want to let them in the end zone; that was our goal today.”  Bowling Green linebacker John Haneline.

Another pretty solid week here in the picks department, as we posted a 4-1 mark for the second straight week but what's best is that our sole miss of the week is one that we didn't mind getting wrong at all.

 

Hey, if taking one on the chin has the net effect of the MAC delivering another blow against the Evil Empire we are more than happy to suffer an 'L' for the cause.

 

So congrats Broncos on your win over Illinois, and delivering another kick in the backside to the BCS powers.

 

Our season record now stands at 67-19 (.779).

 

Here is the breakdown from the past week: