Think about this for a minute. Today was Ohio's 9th consecutive MAC opening win, and 7 of those games were one-score games, including the last two which were by a single point, and two of the last three were in OT! Incredible! They say good teams find ways to win games, and this is exactly why Ohio is so tough for MAC foes to beat. I'm telling you, Ohio will win the MAC Championship this year. No one from the East is going to stop Ohio from getting to Detroit and I like Ohio vs any team you put in Ford Field from the West.

I think this says more about MAC football than it does about Ohio football.

The West looks much better than the East but the West is also about as weak as it has been during this decade because doesn't have a good team in it. The MAC East is just awful. CUSA is just about as bad overall as the MAC. The MAC has been a significantly better league overall than CUSA and the Sunbelt for most of this decade mostly because the West has usually had 2 of the top 6 or 7 G5 teams. It doesn't have anything close to that right now. The Sunbelt is much better this year than either the CUSA or MAC. The American is lapping the G5 field this year. Most of the top 10 G5 teams are in the American. Any that are not are out of the MWC or Sunbelt.

That said, it isn't going to take much to win the East. We are struggling but we have Miami and Kent St. at home, have a road win against Buffalo, and BGSU and Akron are both almost certainly bottom 5 FBS teams. We don't look dominant at all but I think an oddsmaker would give us about to 1:2 odds to win the division just by default and circumstance.

Bringing objective numbers into the number the MAC and CUSA are tied in the computer rankings at the bottom. The SBC is now ahead at only 10 schools and they've let NMSU and Idaho go which have no recruiting potential replaced by southern universities. I'm glad the MAC let UMass go because otherwise it would be even worse. For Ohio I don't mind where the MAC is because its easier to rise to the top. AAC is a log jam at the top.

https://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

B12 39.98
SEC 43.47
P12 44.13
B10 48.09
ACC 55.80
AAC 59.73
MWC 74.88
SBC 86.87
CUSA 97.37
MAC 97.83

I think that's about right. The fun thing about the MAC this year is that, while there are 2 really bad teams, the other 10 are remarkably close, and any one of them could beat any other one. It promises plenty of surprises this fall. The fact that Ball State beat NIU and CMU beat EMU were both surprises this week, and I'm sure we will see plenty more.

If by “remarkedly close” you mean “remarkably bad”, then I agree.

Remember this is not basketball where a team can end up 7th, 8th or 9th in the regular season and get hot for a few games in March in Cleveland and end up in the NCAA tournament. In football, a team has zero shot of winning the MAC championship with a 4th place regular season finish. One game at a time and achieve to get another W vs the Huskies this upcoming week. Go Cats!

I would call BG and Akron "Remarkably bad". For the other ten teams, how about "remarkably mediocre"?

Its more about taking any MAC win you can get and hopefully building up enough of a win margin to offset a tough situation in a game where its just not your day and you end up with an L. As fans it doesn't have to be one game at a time because we are not the ones on the sideline. Until the team can string a few wins together why talk about the MACC? 3-0 in MAC play to finish with a 6-2 MAC record (probably good enough for the east) all Ohio would need is 3-2 in MAC play down the stretch.

How do you want to define mediocre? Big Ten has an average rating of 47.89 in the country. What I see more is the explosiveness of today's game amplifying mistakes. Virginia Tech didn't play well dropped to Duke at home 45-10. Duke doesn't have the talent of VT. Temple is 4-1 with wins against Georgia Tech, Maryland and East Carolina but a loss against Buffalo. Is it mediocrity or is it parity once you move outside of the Top 10 programs? The Big Ten without OSU, Wisconsin and PSU has an average rank of 59.59. PAC-12 only has 1 team in the Top 20 but its average rank is 44.81. Realignment moved programs up beyond their competitive potential. Rutgers, Pitt, WVU were better together than competing second division in larger conferences.