Two MAC quarterbacks put on the O’Brien Award Watch List

Dan LeFevour	Tim Hiller

For the second time in as Many years Dan Lefevour is on the watch list for the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback award, this year he has competition from fellow MAC West Quarterback Tim Hiller.

LeFevour enters the this season first among active FBS players in completions (853), attempts (1,307) and total offense (11,702), second in passing yards (9,467) and fourth in touchdown passes (74). His total offense career yardage ranks 14th in Bowl Subdivision history. He is also a three-time Academic All-MAC (communication major 3.57 gpa)

Tim Hiller set seven Western Michigan passing records in 2008 He ranked tenth in the nation in yardage (3725), 7th in touchdowns (36), and 24th in quarterback rating (143.81). Off the field he earned a 4.0 GPA as an undergraduate and is well on his way to his MBA. With all his free time he is very active in his community service and faith-based mission work.

The Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, is presented annually to the adjudged to be the best of all NCAA quarterbacks. Unlike the Johnny Unitas Award the Obrien Award is not restricted to only seniors so these players are recognized as the best quarterbacks among the 120 FBS football programs.

The selection committee will announce the award’s semifinalists Oct. 26, finalists Nov. 23 and winner Dec. 10.

Considering Schedule, Health, Exposure, and Ability which MAC QB has a better chance at winning?

2009 O’Brien Award Watch List
Sam Bradford, Oklahoma
Jarrett Brown, West Virginia
Daryll Clark, Penn State
Jimmy Clausen, Notre Dame
Aaron Corp, USC
Robert Griffin, Baylor
Matt Grothe, South Florida
Max Hall, BYU
Tim Hiller, Western Michigan
Jordan Jefferson, LSU
Colin Kaepernick, Nevada
Case Keenum, Houston
Dan LeFevour, Central Michigan
Jake Locker, Washington
Ryan Mallett, Arkansas
Jeremiah Masoli, Oregon
Colt McCoy, Texas
Kellen Moore, Boise State
Josh Nesbitt, Georgia Tech
Tony Pike, Cincinnati
Taylor Potts, Texas Tech
Terrelle Pryor, Ohio State
Todd Reesing, Kansas
Kevin Riley, California
Zac Robinson, Oklahoma State
Riley Skinner, Wake Forest
Rusty Smith, Florida Atlantic
Jevan Snead, Mississippi
Tyrod Taylor, Virginia Tech
Tim Tebow, Florida
Adam Weber, Minnesota
Juice Williams, Illinois
Russell Wilson, North Carolina State

Mid-American Conference All-Decade Football Team

CBS has announced their selections for the 1999-2008 Mid American Conference All-Decade team. Because Marshall departed and UCF used the MAC as a stop over several alumni from schools no longer on the list in the MAC lineup.

Larry English, the Mid American Conference Player of the Decade (per CBS) caps off a group of four Northern Illinois Huskies on the team, the most of any school in the conference. Followed by three from Marshall, Central Michigan, and Western Michigan.

Your 2008 Team:

CB	Dwight Smith	Akron
P	Chris Miller	Ball State
OL	Kory Lichtensteiger	Bowling Green
CB	Janssen Patton	Bowling Green
OL	Joe Staley	Central Michigan
LB	Red Keith	Central Michigan
DL	Dan Bazuin	Central Michigan
K	Andrew Wellock	Eastern Michigan
LB	James Harrison	Kent State
QB	Byron Leftwich	Marshall
WR	Darius Watts	Marshall
DL	Jonathan Goddard	Marshall
LB	Terna Nande	Miami (Ohio)
Ret	Ryne Robinson	Miami (Ohio)
RB	Garrett Wolfe	Northern Illinois
RB	Michael Turner	Northern Illinois
OL	Doug Free	Northern Illinois
DL	Larry English	Northern Illinois
CB	Dion Byrum	Ohio
OL	John Greco	Toledo
OL	Nick Kaczur	Toledo
CB	Atari Bigby	UCF
WR	Greg Jennings	Western Michigan
TE	Tony Scheffler	Western Michigan
DL	Jason Babin	Western Michigan

Buffalo and Temple were the only two teams in the conference who did not place a player among the 25 players.

30 Games in 30 Days: #29 Morgan State at Akron

Morgan State	@ Akron

Yes I know Morgan State is an FCS school, Yes I know they have never even played Akron, and Yes I know Baltimore and Akron are some distance apart. The game itself ranked as low as any FCS game in the end I decided a MAC house warming party deserves some mention. You can bet the game will be sold out and loud. Given the quality of opponent you can also assume Akron will walk away with a win.

When: September 12th, 2009
Where: Akron, Ohio


All Time: 0-0

If you're an athletics department that has secured sixty one million dollars this is not a bad way to spend it. Thirty three thousand people (counting standing only capacity) will be there as Akron brings in their token division FCS team right off the bat. This game will not answer any questions about this season but it be a nice kickoff to the season for Akron.

The Zips Squandered last season away starting with a four overtime loss in the last game played at the Rubber Bowl and on average they are being picked to finish fifth in the east. A win here probabaly gets them to 1-1 and warms the stadium up for their first real home opponent Indiana. A winning record heading into MAC play is possible for the Zips and with Syracuse a 3-1 out of conference record is quite realistic.

There is not allot to say about Morgan state they are a team well past their glory days but whatever you do don't leave senior Edwin Baptiste open.


Count Down:

#30: Temple at Navy

Football Football

The buzz going around is about New Motor City Bowl Sponsorship. With the Auto industry in full retreat the Bowl Committee is shopping around for new sponsorship. Two of the Big Three have been through various stages of Bankruptcy and Ford is enjoying a nice, albeit unused, credit line from Washington change is in the air... And it smells great.

George Perles, A Motor City Bowl Executive told the Free Press.

"We're trying to make a proposal to Little Caesars, We don't know anything, but maybe in a couple of weeks."

I hope they find some dignified name, such things are a rarity now but the 'Motor City Bowl' had a nice ring to it. Maybe something Roman like the Parthenon Bowl, The Forum Bowl, the Colosseum Bowl, or the Gladiator Bowl.

We should know by the Time the season starts what the new name will be, but 2009 might very well be the last Motor City Bowl.

Grading the Rankers, CFN (Scout)

Scout is one of the larger integrated sports publishing companies out there. Scout directly provides more than two million people with content making Scout the most read independent sports publisher in the country. So its no surprise than in July and August folks tend to start to look for their annual preview. They finished up the Mid American Conference last week and I am finally getting around adding them to the 'grading the rankers' series.

Slowly some consensus is starting to build around Buffalo and Central Michigan winning their divisions. Western Michigan continues to be seen paired with CMU as the two legitimate powers in the MAC. Only up to five polls so far and I expect more to roll in so we will see how things work out as the summer rolls on.

CFN (Scout)

	Correlation	2008 Grade
East	58	54
West	78	74
Overall	64	64

The Quad Finally has some company as previews that failed last year. They are also the most off of MAC-Smacks 2009 predictions so I can hope they are as wrong last year as they were this year (disclaimer: I root for Buffalo so I hope that CFN is right on the Bulls).

CFN (2009)

West	East
Central Michigan	Buffalo
Western Michigan	Bowling Green
Toledo	Akron
Northern Illinois	Miami
Ball State	Ohio
Eastern Michigan	Temple
	Kent

Mac Smack (2009)

West	East
Central Michigan	Temple
Western Michigan	Buffalo
Northern Illinois	Bowling Green
Ball State	Akron
Toledo	Ohio
Eastern Michigan	Miami
	Kent

Temple finishing 6th in the East kind of seems way off, This year should either be like last year (contender for the east) or better. Temple has enough returning talent and enough quality new blood that they should challenge, if not win, the MAC east division. Nobody has picked them to finish lower than 4th and a 4-8 season with only two conference wins would probably, and rightly so, put Al Golden on the hot seat.

Kent Remains the only team to be picked last in every poll while Miami gets their best look so far being predicted to finish 4th in the East. Outside of Temple and Miami everything shapes up pretty much in line with other publications.

In the west Ball State gets picked to finish 5th, what people are seeing in the Cardinals I don't know. Losing Davis, Hoke and so much of the OL is going to bite them quite a bit but do people honestly think they will fall lower than Toledo and EMU who both had poor seasons last year and are breaking in new coaches?

Scout is one of the few that does not just predict finish but also the records and individual game results. They have Buffalo winning The East with a 6-6,5-3 over Bowling Green by head to head tie breaker. They have Central Beating Buffalo setting up a a similar situation to 2007 when Miami won the East with a 6-6 and was 6-7 after losing the championship game to Central Michigan (thus technically Bowl Ineligible)

Scout did a terrible job picking the MAC last year, the worst yet having Miami finishing 1st and Buffalo finishing last. Not to mention Ball State finishing 4th and Toledo finishing second.

MAC Media 2008

West	East
Western Michigan	Miami
Toledo	Bowling Green
Central Michigan	Ohio
Ball State	Temple
Northern Illinois	Akron
Eastern Michigan	Kent
	Buffalo

Mid American Conference 2008

West	East
Ball State	Buffalo
Central Michigan	Bowling Green
Western Michigan	Temple
Northern Illinois	Akron
Toledo	Ohio
Eastern Michigan	Kent
	Miami

So far here are the polls I have seen and their scores:

		Sporting News	The Quad	VanDelay	MAC Media	Scout CFN
08 Grade East		61	40	57	56	54
08 Grade West		96	79	92	79	74
Correlation East		75	83	50	67	58
Correlation West		89	100	68	89	78

Another seeming low pick for Ball State shakes up the West a bit and and there seems to be a trend in the east with Temple and Bowling Green, who have the benefit of not playing each other, fighting over second place. The tie breakers that might be brought to bear in the east get really ugly With Buffalo, Bowling Green, and Temple let alone the other teams in the east.

West	Score	East	Score
CMU	1.20	Buffalo	1.40
WMU	1.80	Temple	3.00
NIU	3.40	BG	3.20
Toledo	4.20	Ohio	3.80
Ball State	4.60	Akron	4.40
EMU	5.80	Miami	5.60
		Kent	6.80

As always if anyone out there knows of a preview for which I can get the 2009 and 2008 data please give me a shout..

--

The Criteria for grades is as follows: Correspondence Score:

• Penalty Points: For every spot off a team is between predictions a single point is taken off (Example: SN picked Central to win the West, I picked them second so that's minus one per team, or I picked Temple to win the East and SN pick them to finish third that would be minus two).
• Total Points: The total points is the maximum number of penalty points for a division, for the 6 team west that is 18 points and for the 7 team east that is 24 points.
  
• Score: The penalty points are taken from the total points (18 for the west, 24 for the east) and then a simple percentage is calculated. For the west there were two penalty points (one for CMU and one for WMU) so that's 16 points out of a possible 18 or 88.5%

Mac-Smack Prediction Grade:

• Predict the Conference Champ: 10 points, if your predicted champ finishes second, 5 points.
• Predict the Worst Team in the conference 6 points, if your predicted worst finisher places second to last, 3 points.
• For each team in the west if you predict correctly their place 14 points, if you are one place off 12 points, two places off 9 points, three places off 5 points, four places off 1 point.
  
• For each team in the east correctly predicting correctly will get you 12, one place off 11, two places off 8 three places off 5, four places off 2, five places off 1.

Team USA Captures a Gold, Coached by a Huskie

For the fourth straight year Carol Owens has coached the United States Under 19 National Team to a a Gold Medal. This time she closed out by defeating Spain 88-71 Sunday at the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship for Women in Bangkok, Thailand.

Owens Team exacted revenge on the Spanish team for their fist round defeat when a late 21-1 run gave the Spanish Nationals a huge lead that the USA was unable to overcome. The Americans would not another team to finish close through the rest of the tournament winning by an average nearly 30 points over China, Canada, Russia, Spain, France, Japan and Mali.

30 Games in 30 Days: #30 Temple at Navy

Kickoff is just 30 Days away and what better way to work towards the Mid American Conference 2009 season than by looking at some of the key games of the season. MAC-Smack will be counting down our completely subjective top 30 games for 2009. I considered things like MAC implications, series history, school proximity, and media coverage.

So to get us kicked off it's our football only member Temple visiting Navy

Temple	@ Navy

When: October 31, 2009
Where: Annapolis, Maryland

All Time: Navy 5-4

Date	Temple	Navy
November 1, 2008	27	33
August 31, 2007	19	30
November 18, 2006	6	42
November 19, 2005	17	38
August 30, 2001	45	26
September 2, 2000	17	6
November 8, 1997	17	49
October 19, 1991	21	14
September 17, 1988	12	7

This game is all about redemption. Redemption for Al Golden who did not put pride aside and instead of taking a knee tried to run up the middle. Redemption for Kee-ayre Griffin who put the ball on the ground in the waning minutes of the game after trying to get a meaningless yard. Redemption for Steve Maneri who dropped a 4th down touchdown pass the in overtime. Redemption for Jake Brownell who missed a PAT early in the fourth quarter.

Temple had Navy dead to rights; a knee down, a ball held, a catch in OT, or an extra point makes the Owls 6-6 with a win over a quality out of conference opponent likely getting them to a Bowl game.

While Temple has all the motivation in the world for this game Navy might very well get caught looking ahead to their rival Notre Dame who will host the Midshipmen November 7th. Navy was very lucky to beat the Owls last year and the coaching staff knew it:

"I'm kind of stunned right now,The way [we] won that game is just unbelievable." -- Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo

This is what temple fans had to watch last year

If Temple fails to win the East Division a win over Navy would probably be a feather in their cap when at large Bowl selection begins. As an institution they have a great television market and a road win over decent out of conference opponent will likely be the icing on the cake for any Bowl left looking for a team.

While this game has no implications on the Mid-American Conference there is an amount of recent history between these teams. After being ejected from the Big East temple spent the 2005 and 2006 seasons as an Independent program, they have lost to Navy Every year since then. Temple blew a chance to recapture the series lead lead last year and have to be aching to even this series out.

The Schools are only about two hours apart so Temple Fans can have a relaxed breakfast get the carpool together and still make it to Navy-Marine Corp Memorial Stadium with time to Tailgate. If you cant make the drive you'll need Direct TV as the game is being broadcast on CBS College Sports Network (Channel 613).