MAC Football Pick ’Em: Week 2
It’s like ‘Speed 2’ only with a bus instead of a boat.
The opening week of Mid-American Conference football has its drawbacks. Namely, the MAC teams usually end up with 0–1 records, which is why you shouldn’t take people who scream “the MAC is underrated!” seriously, nor should you ask them for advice on your taxes. Those people over-value their interests way too much and that’s not going to get you anywhere in life.
Based on the 10 people that did the opening week of MAC Football Pick ’Em (including Brandon Fitzsimons, Justin Coffin and myself), we don’t have too many of those types, but the FoSat community does have some gambling fools. We don’t discriminate, but we’re judging you hardcore. You know who you are.
Last week, two people picked Buffalo to beat Minnesota and Northern Illinois was actually the FoSat community favorite (7) to beat Boston College (3).
Our Game of the Week was Miami at Marshall, in which Marshall won 31–26. To the four people that picked the Thundering Herd, congrats! You get two points for being a smart person.
Points leaders
- Justin Coffin- 12
- Fitz- 11
- Alex Alvarado- 11
- Tallmidget57- 11
- Ben Roush-10
- Karp- 10
- KC- 10
- Nathan8848- 9
- Matt Dizzle- 9
- Beanscreen- 8
Obviously, a four-point spread from first to last in this 10-person pool is nothing that can’t be made up. And if you’re one of those people who didn’t submit picks last week, you can still join now and finish the season second-to-last place behind me. I’m encouraging!
Below is the form for you to fill out on your own. Here’s a link just in case that doesn’t work out for you. Below that are my picks for the week.
Alex’s picks
Purdue over Ohio: Friday night’s game is going to be loads of fun. Ohio’s still good and Purdue isn’t half-bad. The Boilermakers fell to Louisville 35–28 last weekend and Louisville is the team that still has Lamar Jackson, who won the Heisman Trophy in 2016. Jackson led his team with 107 rushing yards, but the Cardinals were penalized 16 times for 110 yards lost. Conversely, Purdue was penalized six times and lost 69 yards.
While there’s nothing sexy about Purdue beating Ohio, or any fun logic to the thinking, this will end up being a good game that Ohio really could win. I’m just not sold on Ohio’s offense outside of the MAC and FCS defenses yet.
Army over Buffalo: Yeah, Buffalo held Minnesota to 17 points last week. I remember that. I’m not going to compare Minnesota’s offense, who has a new playbook and everything this year, to Army’s triple-option that has been used since 1795. Buffalo’s going to lose the time of possession battle here, and it’ll show.
UAB over Ball State: It’s been a few years since UAB’s lost a game. That’s just tradition, fam.
Michigan State over Western Michigan: Michigan State knows that this shouldn’t be a game that comes down to special teams. Remember when Darius Phillips took a long touchdown to the house against MSU in 2015?
Jon Wassink looked decent last week at USC. Then you look at his stat line: 11-for-22, 67 yards, 1 interception. Western’s going to try to win this one on the ground again. Western’s going to need more than a solid ground game to pull off the upset.
Eastern Michigan over Rutgers: Betting website oddshark.com has the projected score here as EMU 33.9, Rutgers 11.5. Hey, that means EMU would win its first game over a Big Ten school in the history of ever. This is an easy pick.
Miami over Austin Peay: I don’t know if I should look into this one for any real reason here. If you pick Austin Peay, it’s because you’re an Ohio alum, and I respect that about you.
Northern Illinois over Eastern Illinois: Ryan Graham’s going to mess around for the first 40 minutes of the game then will complete most of his passes for all of two drives and the Huskies will end up winning by 11. Who says no?
Howard over Kent State: This is where I asked myself if I see Kent State potentially finishing the season 0–12. If yes, then pick the team that was a 45-point underdog to UNLV just to go on and win it. If not, pick the team that threw for one yard last week.
Kansas over Central Michigan: Sure, Kansas is a bad football program, but Central Michigan tried its hardest not to beat an awful FCS team and failed by winning in three overtimes at home. I don’t care what team it is, anybody that is given six interceptions and only scores one touchdown off of them is a bad team.
Bowling Green over South Dakota: The Falcons will finally score points because of its offense, unless James Morgan just isn’t all that. But BGSU will be fine and this won’t be fun to watch for anybody.
Akron over Arkansas-Pine Bluff: Last week, the Zips were blanked 52–0 at №6 Akron. The Zips could easily flip the script here.
Toledo over Nevada: Just keep Austin Paulhus out of the backfield and Toledo’s offense will do just fine. Even if Nevada ends up putting up some points on the Rockets, Toledo’s better-equipped for a shootout.
Game of the Week: Howard at Kent State. Yeah, I’m doubling down on the chances of Kent State finishing 0–12. So what?
