Tuesday Morning Quick Shots

I've noticed that my blog coverage is a bit quirky as of late. I tried starting the Power Rankings, but so far I've skipped some weeks, which I'm totally sorry about. I do Burning Questions rather inconsistently. Now, I have a new segment, simply called "Tuesday Morning Quick Shots." It's pretty self-explanatory, dealing with discussing topics dealing with the CMU football team and the MAC in general. Let's see how consistently I can pull this one off- I might do this on Mondays, too. Just to make things even more complicated.

• The Mid-American Conference really is a tale of two divisions. On the good side, you have the MAC West, which is the strongest it's been since the glory days of Toledo and Nothern Illinois a few years back. Ball State is playing out of its mind and managed to crack the Top 25 for the first time. Both Central and Western are playing excellent football and could get points in the polls if they keep winning, especially CMU. Plus, first-year coach Jerry Kill has NIU playing extremely underrated football. This team's three losses all came to solid teams (Minnesota, Western and Tennessee) and were by less than a touchdown each.
  
• But then you have the MAC East. This is easily the worst division in the Football Bowl Subdivision. When your division's only win over the MAC West comes when your top team - in this case, Akron - barely squeaks by Eastern Michigan, there's a problem. The best team in the division is Buffalo, although it has yet to take control because of close losses to CMU and WMU. Bowling Green is a true mystery - how does a team beat Pittsburgh 27-17 but lay eggs like last weekend's 27-20 loss at home to Miami (Ohio)? I haven't even gotten to Kent State yet, a team whose only win was over an FCS school.
• Alarming statistics of the midway point: CMU's Antonio Brown is the best punt returner in the nation right now, averaging 24.4 yards per return. BSU's MiQuale Lewis is the nation's 8th best runner, averaging more than 130 yards per game. (And you all talk about quarterback Nate Davis. Bah.) Also from the Chippewas, Frank Zombo sacks the quarterback 1.07 times per game, tied for 8th in the country.
• Speaking of Ball State... Even if this team wins out and beats the MAC East for the conference championship (which, trust me, it would beat the MAC East representative if that were the case), it's going to be extremely tough for the Cardinals to rank in the Top 12 and qualify for a BCS at-large bid. Why? A dirt easy schedule compared to the competition. The only team out of a BCS conference it played is a 2-5 Indiana team. No other win, at least as of right now, really defines the Cardinals as a Top 25 team. Now you can make a case for CMU if it happens to enter the BSU game at 8-2, but pollsters will still expect Ball State to win that game. It'll be interesting, for sure, but I'm not expecting much.
• Which of the next three road games is the toughest? I'd say Northern Illinois, by far. Yeah, CMU gets an extra half-week to rest, but so does NIU, and I would argue that the Huskies could beat Indiana in a matchup anyway. This is a team that tore Toledo and EMU apart, came close to upsetting Tennessee in Knoxville and barely lost at WMU. Indiana, meanwhile, consistently gets smoked by Big Ten teams, even those considered mediocre. CMU has to enter Huskie Stadium as the third game of the road trip, right in the middle of the week.
• Something interesting to note: Toledo's strength always seems to be its offense. Problem is, it's averaged nine points per game over the last four. I actually think that it has a lot to do with the defenses the Rockets are playing - Ball State's defense is among the best in the conference right now, while NIU's actually is the best statistically. The other two defenses were Michigan (which UT beat) and Florida Atlantic.