Ohio’s The Favorite

The 2020 MAC football championship odds are out, and the favorites haven’t won the title since 1968. Also, make sure to avoid the Ball State Trap.

The Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook released championship odds for college football on Monday, and here’s how the oddsmakers view the MAC going into the 2020 season:

The Case Against Ohio, MAC Favorite

While I can’t tell you how to spend your money, I can tell you that being publicly confident in the form of real American dollars in an Ohio MAC title is about as useful as getting excited about your new gig aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald — November is going to go poorly for you!

Other than being cursed, there are football reasons to doubt Ohio’s odds should be this kind. Nathan Rourke has moved on to the CFL, leaving his younger brother, Kurtis, to replace him under center. Rourke was one of the most dangerous offensive players in the conference over the last three seasons, and replacing him will not be easy.

Additionally, the defense doesn’t figure to be any good, ranking 99th in ESPN’s preseason SP+ rankings. A major quarterback change without a good defense to backstop against the growing pains hardly seems like a a good recipe for a potential MAC champion.

Beware The Ball State Trap

Every year Ball State lures people onto its bandwagon, only for said wagon to go up in flames. Here is a brief history of Ball State football since 2016:

2016: Ball State hires Mike Neu, an alumnus and former quarterback, and the Cardinals immediately start 3–1. Why did we think the transition from Pete Lembo would be so bad? Because it is bad. Ball State finishes 4–8.

2017: Loses to Illinois by three points to open the season, demolishes a good UAB team at home and takes care of business against Tennessee Tech. Doesn’t win another game the rest of the year.

2018: Loses by eight at eighth-ranked Notre Dame and everyone feels good about Ball State football again. But by rule, some school in Indiana must go 4–8, and it was the Cardinals’ turn.

2019: Ball State’s magnum opus. The Cardinals forwent the usual route of crashing the bandwagon immediately after the non conference schedule and instead opted to go 1–3 to open the season. The catch, however, is that all of those games were competitive, meaning when the Cardinals opened conference play 3–0 with wins over NIU and Toledo, there was ample evidence for MAC football knowers to proclaim they were actually good the whole time. Turns out NIU and Toledo were just bad, and so was Ball State. The Cardinals finshed 5–7.

2020: As Ball State takes Michigan to the wire at the Big House, the line to board the bandwagon will grow and grow. HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?

The Most Interesting Team In The World

If you’re looking for a dark horse candidate to seem smart in front of your friends who don’t watch MAC football, Kent State has a compelling case to be your team. The Flashes exceeded expectations in 2019 by winning three straight to close the season. They even tacked on a fourth straight win by beating Aaron Rodgers’ new best friend in the Frisco Bowl.

Kent State is a classic wild card that will be nothing if not entertaining. If you toss out Bowling Green and Akron who, unless you’re Toledo, were basically bottom-tier FCS opponents, Kent State was outscored in MAC games by just two points. It went 3–3 in those games, none of which ended with a margin of victory or defeat greater than eight points. The Flashes were simultaneously almost champions and almost bottom feeders. How fun!

The Flashes also get Dustin Crum back at quarterback, and he was a big reason they closed out 2019 as strong as they did. In a year where the MAC is pretty thin at experience at the position, Crum’s return could make all the difference. Kent State is worth your time so long as you’re willing to tell everyone you bet on a guy named Crum.

Everyone Else is Just Fine Where They Are

After considering Kent State and shying away from Ball State and Ohio, that leaves everyone else. Bowling Green and Akron are both in year zero-type territory, meaning they will be forgivably bad, but if you wanted to take a flyer on one or the other, Bowling Green is probably better.

Central Michigan and Miami, the reigning division champions, are at 8/1 and 12/1 odds, respectively. You can describe every Miami team of the last four years mostly the same: Offensively challenged with killer special teams and a stingy defense. The only difference between the 2019 version that won the title and the rest of Chuck Martin’s recent teams is the 2019 version won the close games instead of losing them all. That consistency isn’t a bad thing if you’re looking for a team who is still alive into late November.

For Central Michigan it is mainly a question of what it does at quarterback. If Jim McElwain figures out the puzzle again, the Chippewas could be the MAC’s best team. With McElwain, the end of his tenure at Florida plus his passing resemblance to a guy that hugs sharks while naked has made him the butt of many jokes, but at the end of the day he’s got the best resume of recent accomplishments among his contemporaries in the MAC. Expecting CMU to not have a say in the West division would be foolish. Betting on CMU to win it all would not be as foolish.

Northern Illinois and Eastern Michigan are also replacing quarterbacks this season and Northern Illinois is in a bit of a rebuilding mode under Thomas Hammock. The Huskies do not look like an attractive option to win the MAC except for the fact they made some sort of deal with the devil to hold dominion over the conference, so remember to factor in dark magic when picking your MAC champion.

WMU at 12/1 is fine if you think the offense won’t miss a beat. Kaleb Eleby is in at quarterback after a redshirt season and as the highest-rated recruit at that position in program history he’s bringing with him some high expectations. His ability to meet them will tell the entire story of WMU’s 2020 season. Based on his performances in 2018 in relief of the injured Jon Wassink and the conference being generally thin at quarterback, expect Eleby to look like one of the MAC’s best on day one.

After many years of NIU and Bowling Green trading shots in the MAC title game, the MAC has had five consecutive new champions since 2015, and nobody in that period has won the game more than once. With nearly half the conference winning titles in the last few seasons, there’s plenty of reason to believe 2020 will be just as crazy as the previous season, making for an exciting yet perilous environment for picking a MAC champion in May.