Ugly Game of the Week - Week 12 Is MAC-tacular!

Last week's game of the week, Syracuse v Louisville lived up to the hype and ended 10-9.  No scoring in the first half, and the winning team was 1-12 on 3rd down and had 151 total yards of offense.  The "If It Doesn't Work, Keep Trying" award goes to Louisville for rushing 34 times for 35 yards.   Also, Syracuse's punter may be from space, kicking 6 times for a 49.7 yards average with a long of 63.

In other games, Army pulled out a 22-17 win against VMI in a game that had 3 field goals in the thrid quarter.  UCLA crushed Washington State, as expected, 42-7.  If you have 7 first downs for the whole game, and the other team has 556 yards of offense, the score is probably not close.  Also no surprise that Western beat Eastern to clinch second place in the Michigan Directional bowl.  Eastern had 6 turnovers to help them score only 14 points when they had 364 yards of offense.  Western scored 3 TDs in the second quarter to end this one early.

This week, we're treated to three sub-.500 games in the MAC.  Yes, that means that half of the MAC games feature teams .500 or lower.  Eastern goes to keep their perfect season alive against Toledo, Buffalo plays Miami(Obviously NTM), and Akron plays relative powerhouse Bowling Green.  Eastern has been well documented in these pages, and looks to have their hands full against Toledo.  If I have to type "looks to have their hands full with Toledo," you're a bad team.  Toledo has the #22 offense, so this looks to be rather one-sided.

The Buffalo v Miami(Still NTM) game was Wednesday, with Buffalo winning 42-17.  Another good metric:  if you have 21 first downs, and only need 7 thrid-down conversion attempts, you're probably winning.  Buffalo Buffalo buffalo Hawks.

Akron v Bowling Green also look to be lopsided.  Bowling Green lost to Missouri by a TD, and has generally beaten up on the lower team in the MAC, with wins against Buffalo, Miami, Ball State, etc.  This one could be a defensive battle, with both team's defenses between the 60's and 70's.

In Big Ten games not feauting Michigan, Indiana plays Purdue.  Purdue is kind of the anti-Michigan.  4-7, but 3-4 in conference.  This is the same Purdue team that beat Ohio State after losing to Minnesota, then got blanked by Wisconsin before, well, we all know what happened next.  Indiana should be a well-known entity by this point.

In non-MAC games, CSU plays New Mexico in another "Someone Will Get a Conference Win" bowl.  CSU started 3-0, beating CU and Nevada, before the horns came off the ram.  New Mexico looks to just beat someone, anyone.  Maybe they could play Eastern.

UTEP plays Rice in the "Didn't I Already Do This Game, Conference USA Toilet Bowl Round Robin" series.  C-USA is like groundhog day, and I'm sure they look at the MAC and say the same thing.  UTEP does have the #30-ranked offense, so they've got that going for them.  Which is nice.  This game is just edged out by Eastern v Toledo for worst overall ranking, 280 to 303.

Since I featured Army last week, Army v North Texas only gets mentioned for the "Immovable Object, Irresistable Force" award, as Army's #13 defense goes up against North Texas's #28 offense.