The weekend around the MAC

Mid-American Conference Scores
Akron 30, Kent State 27 (OT)
Western Michigan 41, Ohio 20
Temple 28, Miami (Ohio) 10
Eastern Michigan 24, Bowling Green 21
Tennessee 13, Northern Illinois 9
Ball State 31, Toledo 0

I can't say there's much of a surprise here in terms of the winners and losers, but some of the results caught my eye this weekend. NIU put up a heck of a fight against Tennessee, even though the Vols were running a new starting quarterback, Nick Stephens. Either way, the Huskies are a real dark horse candidate in the MAC West right now. They've always been a great team and last year is looking more and more like just a bad year. Coach Jerry Kill, in his first year, has those guys working. Yeah, they're 2-3, but those were three tough losses on the road against Minnesota, WMU and Tennessee. Give them a year and they're correct most of that.

The other surprising result was Ball State and Toledo, in which the Cardinals blanked the vaulted Rockets offense. As good as Ball State is, how does Toledo go from scoring 54 against Fresno State to scoring NOTHING on Saturday? BSU outgained UT 482-157 in yardage in the win and managed to break the Associated Press Top 25, finally. (And some of you thought I was crazy for thinking this team was going to go into CMU 9-1 or better. That's my moment of gloating for now.)

One player to watch: Ball State junior running back MiQuale Lewis. This guy is making a serious case for MAC Offensive Player of the Year. He has 802 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns in six games, including 166 and four against Indiana a few weeks ago. Yikes.

Obviously this Ball State team is the class of the MAC, as I've said before. But the way I see it, it has to beat CMU next month unless the Chippewas manage to lose themselves out of the race. I don't see that happening with a home game against Western and a road game against somehow-lowly Toledo. There is no bias speaking here. Realistically, they could lose at NIU the week before the BSU game, but even in that situation, a win against Ball State would give CMU the head-to-head tiebreaker.

One other thing to keep an eye on: Temple enters CMU this week with a 28-10 win over Miami (Ohio.) That'll give the team a better confidence boost after rolling off four consecutive losses.