Tony Wolfe breaks down the top five MAC football moments till this point.
It isn’t often a Mid-American Conference football team gets attention from national media that is anything other than condescending, which is part of what has made the past few weeks fun.
MAC teams thrusted themselves into the national spotlight quite often during the first four weeks of the collegiate season, playing a total of 12 AP Top-25 teams, 12 Big Ten squads, four Big 12 teams and two SEC opponents. Many of those games wound up being close, and a few of them resulted in MAC teams picking up big wins.
The MAC will get a shot at one more lasting highlight Saturday when Eastern Michigan takes on No. 9 LSU. But until then, here are the top-five MAC non-conference performances from the first four weeks of the season.
5. No. 17 Northwestern 24, Ball State 19
Northwestern surprised many out of the gate in 2015, picking up wins against Stanford and Duke early in the season. But it was the Cardinals who surprised fans last Saturday, coming up with three takeaways in the first half and entering halftime with a 10-7 lead against the nationally-ranked Wildcats.
It wasn’t as big of a lead as it could have been, however, and that wound up costing the Cardinals late. After missing two field goals and fumbling inside Northwestern’s five yard line all in the first half, Ball State surrendered 17 straight points in the third quarter as Northwestern’s offense found its gear. Its defense recomposed itself in the fourth, but a win just wasn’t in the cards.
4. Minnesota 27, Ohio 24
In another tough one-score loss in Big Ten territory last Saturday, Ohio didn’t merely look on par with Minnesota — it actually looked like the better team. Ohio led for the majority of the first half, and again for the majority of the fourth quarter, while its running back combination of Daz Patterson and A.J. Oellette ran better against the Golden Gophers’ defense than anybody has all year long.
It’s a bit painful to think of what might have been for the Bobcats if not for the penalties and blunders at the line of scrimmage, but buried in this loss was a ton of upsides for this group heading into MAC play.
3. Bowling Green 48, Maryland 27
Bowling Green 35, Purdue 28
Combining these two games, both essentially told the same tale of Bowling Green travelling to a lower-tier Big Ten school and Matt Johnson lighting the entire place up with his throwing ability. Johnson, if you haven’t heard, is the nation’s leading passer, throwing for a just plain silly 440 yards per game. That may not hold up against MAC competition, especially in the West division, but a 2-0 record against the Big Ten is impressive nonetheless.
2. No. 1 Ohio State 20, Northern Illinois 13
This won’t go down as Northern Illinois’ best game of the season, but give credit where credit is due to a defense that allowed only one offensive touchdown, 4.7 yards per pass and even fewer yards per rush against an offense that was supposed to run roughshod over the whole country this year.
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Ohio State’s defense bailed it out here, but as the Buckeyes figure things out, there’s a legitimate chance this becomes the closest game they play all season. That won’t appease the Huskies much, who believed they had opportunities to win this game (which they did), but it would still be a neat thing to hang your hat on when all is said and done.
1. Toledo 16, No. 18 Arkansas 12
Penalties didn’t help the Razorbacks, and neither did turnovers, but Toledo was still able to cause chaos on defense and make life difficult for Arkansas' offense. Time after time Arkansas managed to find the red zone, but not finish the drive with a score. The Rockets, meanwhile, came away with the school’s first-ever victory against an SEC team, which is certainly deserving of the number one MAC highlight from the season’s first month. Maybe Razorbacks' coach Bret Bielema will stop lording his strength of schedule over the rest of the country now.
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