Teams from the Mid-American Conference have beaten a program from the Big Ten in the previous ten seasons.
This season was no different, as Western Michigan beat Northwestern 22-21 on Saturday.
Last week, coach P.J. Fleck talked about his admiration of Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, calling him one of the best coaches in the country.
Fleck was very happy to have beaten one of his coaching idols, and in his opinion, one of the best teams in the country.
“I think they were just shy of the Top 25,” Fleck said. “You can tell why, they had a lot of players returning, they are a very disciplined football team, a well coached football team.”
Crazy Finishes
Two MAC schools went to triple overtime in their first games of the season.
One was Ohio, who fell to Texas State, 56-54.
The other was Northern Illinois, who lost to Wyoming 40-34. The game was delayed early and ended well into the early morning hours. The game started at 9 p.m. Western Time.
“We just didn’t execute,” Coach Rod Carey said.
After a long, tough game, he is now forced to look to what his team can do better.
“You look at it, you assess it, and then you fix it,” Carey said. “You would rather fix (your mistakes) on a win, but sometimes, you have to do it on a loss.”
Learning
Other than Western Michigan, three other MAC schools played Big Ten teams.
It went significantly worse.
Miami (OH) lost to No. 17 Iowa 45-21. Chuck Martin, a third year head coach for the RedHawks, is no stranger to playing Big 10 teams.
He saw that his team is improving against those big programs, and they were not overwhelmed in this matchup.
“We learned as a football team we are a lot better,” Martin said. “We are way bigger, we are way more physical, we certainly didn’t control the physicality, but we weren’t overwhelmed like the first two years.”
Kent State fell to Penn State, 33-13. Coach Paul Haynes said the game brought a lot of experience to his team, as they played over 60 different players, and his team grew and learned a lot.
“A lot of young guys got good experience in a great venue,” Haynes said.
Bowling Green traveled to Columbus, and lost to No. 6 Ohio State 77-10.
Coach Mike Jinks did not see a lot of positives coming out of the game, but an opportunity to learn.
“One of the biggest things that we sat down and talked to the kids about was third down, both offensively and defensively,” Jinks said. “We were 1-8 offensively, and they were 5-6.”
