Ohio running the table? Not that far-fetched

The year is 2012. The MAC has a couple of solid teams in Northern Illinois (led by a junior quarterback by the name of Jordan Lynch) and Kent State (with a budding Dri Archer). However, the conference’s crown jewel is the Ohio Bobcats. After beating an awful Akron squad, Sports Illustrated says that Frank Solich’s program is the “Boise of the East” as they sit at 7–0 and looking to complete an undefeated season.

Then the calendar approached November. After finally getting ranked, the Bobcats dropped a head-scratcher to a bad Miami team en route to a 1–4 regular season finish (Ohio did beat UL-Monroe in its bowl game). Kent State and NIU swept their respective divisions, and delivered a MAC Championship for the ages, as both were ranked for the game. Ohio slipped back into obscurity.

Flash forward five years later.

Ohio is coming off a close MAC Championship loss from a season ago (again) with a solid defense (again) and Solich at the helm (until the end of time). Yep, the 2017 Bobcats are coming into this year looking like the ones of old. And once again, Ohio has a winnable non-conference schedule. So the question comes back:

Can Ohio exorcise its demons and fulfill the SI prophecy?

First Three Weeks (vs Hampton, @ Purdue, vs Kansas): There is a lot of potential here. Hampton is an extremely favorable game, if Ohio can’t win, they have bigger problems. A Friday night game in West Lafayette awaits the Bobcats after the opener, and that appears to be their most difficult non-conference game. Purdue shouldn’t really ever be a team’s “most difficult game”, but that’s where we’re at. Solich and Company return home to take on “Are They Actually FCS?” Kansas to round out this schedule

Run The Table Difficulty: 5 — Purdue will pose a threat, and you never know if Kansas will play up to its Big 12 level, but Ohio being 3–0 after this stretch should surprise no one.

Second Quadrant of Games (@ EMU, @ UMass, vs CMU): Well hello there, UMass. Good seeing you again. How are things?. . . Sandwiched between games with two directional Michigan foes is a trip to Amherst to face former MAC East member UMass. The Minutemen are widely believed to be one of, if not the worst FBS school this year, making 4–0 in the non-conference schedule a real possibility for Ohio.

However, those two games surrounding the UMass contest pose a significant challenge. The Eagles actually beat the Bobcats last season, and return a good chunk of its offense. The Chippewas are in a rebuild of sorts, but they have Shane Morris (or Tony Poljian) to quarterback its way through the first post-Cooper Rush year. Either could provide an upset here, but Ohio should have the more complete team against both.

Run The Table Difficulty: 6 — This is mostly based off my gut feeling on how decent EMU will be this year, but never sleep on the Chippewas who always seem to be “eh” by winning games like this.

HALFTIME: By this point, we could very well be looking at another 6–0 start to the season for Ohio. However, this is where the difficulty picks up. The two biggest conference games come on weeknights, where anything happens. Additionally, with November comes the stigma of prior late season collapses (looking at you, 2012). Though the Bobcats have seemed to shake that the past two years, you never know when it’ll strike again.

Final Saturday Games (@ Bowling Green, vs Kent State): Before we get there, the odds to go 8–0 are extremely high. Bowling Green might pose a challenge, but it’s tough to gauge the Falcons after they turned it on late following a disaster-filled opening two months. The Golden Flashes don’t appear to have the offense to keep up with the MAC Elite and shouldn’t be a threat unless they score a bunch on defense.

Run The Table Difficulty: 2 — Any trip-up here and Ohio loses its legitimacy before entering…

We Really Need To Fire Our Schedule Makers Games (vs Miami, vs Toledo): The MAC is something. It put all of the big rivalries on weeknights, and also gave us Ohio’s Senior Night against Toledo. Oof. On the bright side, both of these games are at home. The Battle of the Bricks is currently the de facto MAC East Title Game, and it’s on Halloween (or HallOUween in Athens). You follow that up a week later with the pre-season MAC favorite Rockets? That’s just torture. But, Ohio did beat both last season. On the road, no less.

Run The Table Difficulty: 10 — This is by far the toughest stretch on the schedule. Arguably the two most difficult games back-to-back, and on weeknights. If the Bobcats can get through this, and if Toledo is getting national love as well, you’ll start to hear the rumblings of a Cotton/Fiesta Bowl berth again. But, again, you’ll likely see an American Conference team sitting above Ohio at that time (and probably justifiably so).

Home (Road?) Stretch (@ Akron, @ Buffalo): Akron choked down the stretch last season, but nearly spoiled Ohio’s MAC East Championship with a touchdown in the final minutes of their season finale. Alas, the Zips dropped the ball (literally) and Ohio went to Detroit while the Zips sat at home. The Zips look to rebound this year, but questions on defense keep them from being a legitimate contender.

As for Buffalo, well, the team stinks. By the end of the season, we could see a couple young toys for Tyree Jackson to play with, but overall they don’t look to be in great shape. That said, playing in Buffalo in November (late November at that!) is never a good thing. I don’t think Ohio will pull a Kent State, so this could be a good trap game.

Run The Table Difficulty: 4 — I should make it higher, but Akron and Buffalo as standalone football teams don’t really threaten you. The intangibles (road games, week nights, Buffalo in November, etc) increase the difficulty more than anything, but if Ohio can get to 10–0, getting to 12–0 should be a piece of cake.

I’m going to finish by saying that though I don’t expect Ohio to go 12–0 this season (it’s tough for any team to do, just ask the past two National Champions and their runners-up for each respective season), if we were to see an 11–1 Bobcat team in Detroit, it wouldn’t surprise me. Pair that with a double-digit win team out of the West, and the MAC Title game looks pretty damn entertaining.