Mid-American Conference: Looking Ahead To 2009

How do you get your name out there to the public? The Mid-American Conference is doing it with a little help from the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN.

The MAC and ESPN have announced an eight-year agreement that will include football, and men’s and women’s basketball. The agreement will run through the 2016-17 academic year.

In this new deal ESPN will televise a minimum of 25 events each year. The deal is for the events to be produced and aired on ESPN platforms that include ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and any other ESPN channels.

After a couple of record-breaking games in the 2008 season, ESPN and the MAC felt it a good business move to ink this deal. The game between Ball State and Central Michigan was the highest-rated college football telecast for a Tuesday or Wednesday night in the history of ESPN2.

The MAC championship, where Buffalo upset previously undefeated Ball State, was the most watched conference game in MAC history as well. With both of these games on the ESPN family of networks, it shows that there is a wide interest in the conference.

Getting the MAC name and its brand of football out to the nation is a good thing. While the schools stay the same, the names continue to change. And I don’t mean the players graduating or going to the NFL.

Brady Hoke, the coach behind Ball State’s 12-0 regular season record, has left for San Diego State and the increasingly more popular Mountain West Conference. Hoke is replaced by Stan Parrish.

At Eastern Michigan, Ron English takes over for Jeff Genyk. Eastern Michigan has been a perennial bottom team in the MAC, which is the reason behind the change. Another team that has taken up residency in the MAC cellar is Toledo, which has hired Tim Beckman to replace Tom Amstutz. While Amstutz has a nice-looking resume at Toledo which includes four bowls and two MAC championships, there was no getting away with having three straight seasons with a losing record.

In the MAC East, Bowling Green has brought in Dave Clawson to replace Gregg Brandon. Brandon only had one losing season at Bowling Green. However, his first season was his best and since then the program has had inconsistent results, finishing last season at 6-6. Miami of Ohio hired Mike Haywood after Shane Montgomery went 17-31 over his four years as head coach. Montgomery already has another job, though. He is now the offensive coordinator at MAC East rival Akron.

That’s five out of 13 coaches changing in this year alone. In addition to these changes, Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, Buffalo and Temple all have coaches who are not even entering their fifth year at the school. That’s nine schools who have players that have been there more time than the current coach.

Ball State also helped get the MAC into the public eye by going 12-0 through the regular season. It climbed the rankings to its highest position of 12 in both the AP and BCS polls. They then went on to lose the MAC championship game and their bowl game by a combined score of 87-37. Ball State did its part to get the MAC more air time. I don’t believe that with a new coach and some key players leaving that they will approach the same success they had in 2008.

Central Michigan, on the other hand, has one of the MAC’s best quarterbacks returning in Dan LeFevour. With him leading the offense, Central Michigan looks to return to the MAC championship game after winning two of the last three.

With a new ESPN deal, a turnover in coaching to try to improve the standing of some teams, and playing on the success of teams like Ball State and Central Michigan, the MAC is making a push to show it can play with the rest of the nation.