Scout.com: 2009 CFN MAC Roundup

2009 CFN MAC Roundup

By Staff

CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Dec 2, 2009

MAC 2009 Game of the Week, Player of the Week, Roundup & Standings

2009 MAC ... Week 14

	CFN EXPERT PICKS	Fiu	Rich	Matt	Michael	Clucko	PICK
8:00	Ohio at CMU -12	CM	CM*	CM	CM*	OH	CM*
	Straight Up	78-26	79-25	76-28	78-26	51-53	78-26
	ATS	59-45	56-48	47-47	45-49	38-56	40-54

East
	Conf.		Overall
Ohio	7	1	9	3
Temple	7	1	9	3
BGSU	6	2	7	5
Kent St	4	4	5	7
Buffalo	3	5	5	7
Akron	2	6	3	9
Miami	1	7	1	11
West
	Conf.		Overall
CMU	8	0	10	2
NIU	5	3	7	5
WMU	4	4	5	7
Toledo	3	5	5	7
Ball St	2	6	2	10
EMU	0	8	0	12
Players of the Week 11/28 Theo Scott, RB Ohio 11/21 LaVon Brazill, WR OU 11/14 Dan LeFevour, QB CM 11/7 Bernard Pierce, QB TU 10/31 Bernard Pierce, RB TU 10/24 MiQuale Lewis & Cory Sykes, RB BSU 10/17 Fred Barnes, WR BG 10/10 Fred Barnes, WR BG 10/3 Aaron Opelt, QB, Stephen Williams, WR, Toledo 9/26 Dan LeFevour, QB CMU 9/19 Meco Brown, RB NIU 9/13 Dan LeFevour, QB CMU 9/5 Tyler Sheehan QB & Freddie Barnes, WR, BGSU Games of the Week 11/28 11/21 Ohio 38, NIU 31 11/14 Ohio 27, UB 24 11/7 Temple 34, MU 32 10/31 Ohio 20, BSU 17 10/24 WMU 34, UB 31 OT 10/17 Toledo 20, NIU 19 10/10 BG 36, KSU 35 10/3 Toledo 37, BSU 30 9/26 Idaho 34, NIU 31 9/19 NIU 28, Purdue 21 9/13 CMU 29, MSU 27 9/5 Villanova 27, Temple 24 Scoreboard at Ohio 35 Temple 17 - Ohio & Scott beat the Owls to win East title - Temple can't handle Scott in loss to Bobcats CFN Prediction: Temple 30-23 . Line: Temple -4 at Bowling Green 38 Toledo 24 - Bowling Green hangs on to get by Rockets - Toledo's comeback falls short in loss to BGSU CFN Prediction: BGSU 38-31 . Line: BGSU -8.5 at Akron 28 Eastern Michigan 21 - Akron sloppy in win over the Eagles - EMU finishes season winless with loss to Zips CFN Prediction: Akron 34-20 . Line: Akron -14.5 at Central Michigan 45 Northern Illinois 31 - Central Michigan off to the MAC title game - NIU can't keep up in loss to Chippewas CFN Prediction: CMU 34-23 Line: CMU -10 Buffalo 9 at Kent State 6 - Buffalo gets last second FG to beat KSU - Kent State gets no O in loss to Bulls CFN Prediction: Buffalo 28-24 . Line: Buffalo -1.5

GAME OF THE WEEK

at Bowling Green 38 … Toledo 24
Bowling Green got out to a 24-0 first quarter lead on the first of two Freddie Barnes touchdown catches and two of Willie Geter’s three one-yard scoring runs. But Toledo roared back with a 24-point run helped by two short touchdown runs from DaJuane Collins. The Falcons owned the last ten minutes with a 17-yard Barnes catch and Geter’s final score. Toledo’s offense rolled, but turned the ball over five times.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Ohio QB Theo Scott completed 17-of-21 passes for 324 yards and three scores, and he ran six times for 69 yards and two scores in the win over Temple. in the win over NIU.

CONFERENCE ROUNDUP

Akron … at Akron 28 ... Eastern Michigan 21 ... The end of the J.D. Brookhart era finished with a win, but this was a tremendously disappointing season with little offense, struggling special teams, and too many problems getting timely defense. Going forward, there are some decent pieces in place with Patrick Nicely getting plenty of work at quarterback while Jeremy LaFrance is a good-looking wide receiver to build the passing game around. The defense has to be more aggressive and the scheme is going to have to change. It didn’t work.

Ball State …Ball State 22 ... at Western Michigan 17 ... Ball State had yet another lousy effort offensively, the passing game was a nightmare throughout the year and only came up with 71 yards against WMU, but after the way this season has gone, it’ll take a win no matter how it was able to get it. The defense was timely and the special teams came up with the big plays needed to bail out the offense, and now the Cardinals get to go into the season on a positive note. But there’s a lot of work to do until next September.

Bowling Green … at Bowling Green 38 ... Toledo 24 ... The offense has been tremendous all season long, but the passing game struggled and the attack didn’t go on many long drives against Toledo. It didn’t have to thanks to a defense that kept taking the ball away. The Falcons might not be all that great, but they’ve been great when they have had to be and now should be off to a bowl game. Whether or not that happens, this has been a great first season under head coach Dave Clawson.

Buffalo … Buffalo 9 ... at Kent State 6 ... The Bulls might not have closed out with a bang, but closing out with two road wins isn’t a bad way to make a bad season look better. The offensive line did a nice job and Brandon Thermilus ran extremely well, but this game was about the defense that stuffed the Golden Flashes all game long and allowed just 31 passing yards. This was a transitional year with the hope for experience to be enough to win two more games next year to be in the hunt for the MAC title.

Central Michigan … at Central Michigan 45 ... Northern Illinois 31 ... Dan LeFevour has never been playing better, and the team is far better than any of the other two MAC champions. The offense was tremendous against a strong NIU defense, and it has to try to keep the production going against Ohio to keep hope alive for a 12-win season. The defensive front isn’t getting into the backfield, but it has been strong against the run, but to beat Ohio, it’s all about taking care of the ball. If CMU wins the turnover margin battle, it’ll win the MAC for a third time in four years.

Eastern Michigan … at Akron 28 ... Eastern Michigan 21 ... 0-12. Things were bad under Jeff Genyk, but they weren’t 0-12 bad. The Eagles never got better as the season went on, the run defense finished the year as the worst in America, and there wasn’t enough offensively to keep up, even with teams like Akron. This is a relatively young team, but there’s 100 miles to go to being respectable after this disaster of a year.

Kent State … Buffalo 9 ... at Kent State 6 ... Kent State was in the MAC title hunt just a few weeks ago, but three losses in November, bottoming out with a pitiful offensive performance against Temple followed up by this mess against Buffalo, wiped away all the good things the team did in the face of so much adversity. Anthony Magazu wasn’t the answer at quarterback with just 31 yards of production, but Dri Archer looked solid trying to carry the ground game. Health cost the team a winning season, but plenty of young players got solid experience going into 2010.

Miami University … Didn’t Play This Week

Northern Illinois … at Central Michigan 45 ... Northern Illinois 31 ... NIU simply wasn’t consistent enough. The Huskies came up with the big plays needed to get into the MAC title hunt, but the losses on the road to the two MAC title combatants, Ohio and CMU, came because the league’s top defense went bye-bye at the wrong time. There’s still a strong chance for a bowl game, but to get the victory the rushing game has to get more than the 126 yards the O got against CMU, and the turnovers have to stop after giving it away three times.

Ohio … at Ohio 35 ... Temple 26 ... Theo Scott came through with a near-perfect game, the defense shut down and screwed up an awful Temple passing game, and now it’s off to the MAC title game. The defense isn’t anything special and the running game sputters too much, but the team finds ways to win and it did a fantastic job on both lines of controlling things early on. But the win was all about Scott, who connected on the big plays when needed and was flawless with his decision making. He’ll have to be perfect again to be able to outplay Dan LeFevour and the Chippewas.

Temple … at Ohio 35 ... Temple 26 ... Obviously the season isn’t a disappointment after this loss, but after all the great things the team had done, this wasn’t the performance it wanted. The defense is far better than it showed against the Bobcats, while the offensive line did its job with Matt Brown doing a fantastic job in place of an injured Bernard Scott. The team got away with not having a passing game all year, but it was a killer against the Bobcats averaging just 3.6 yards per pass and throwing three picks. Fortunately, there will be one more game, the bowl, to make amends.

Toledo … at Bowling Green 38 ... Toledo 24 ... With four losses in the last five games, Toledo blew its shot to get into the bowl mix. The turnovers were too much to overcome, and while the offense ripped up Bowling Green, the mistakes were killers. Austin Dantin might have thrown two interceptions, but he also threw for 326 yards and ran for 45 more making him a potentially strong offensive playmaker to build around for next year. Tim Beckman had a nice first year, but not a great one. The team will need to be more consistent.

Western Michigan … Ball State 22 ... at Western Michigan 17 ... Talk about ending things with a total thud, Tim Hiller chose the worst possible time to have one of the worst games of his career with a personal-high four interceptions costing the Broncos at a chance for a win. The defense came up with a strong effort with four players making ten stops while holding the Cardinal to just 226 yards of total offense. WMU wasn’t going to go bowling even at 6-6, but being eligible would’ve still been a nice way to end a disappointing year.