You might be surprised to learn that Northern Illinois has the longest current winning streak in all of FBS football right now. Northern Illinois has won nine straight games heading into this season. The Huskies won the MAC Championship and their bowl game in Dave Doeren’s first season as their coach.
Darrell Hazzell took the Kent State job before last season, and the team proceeded to start 0-6 against FBS competitors. In those six games, the Golden Flashes averaged a pathetic 7 points per game on the offensive end. By the end of the year, the Golden Flashes had a 5-7 record and some momentum heading into the 2012 season.
The Ohio Bobcats won the first bowl game in the team’s history last year. It’s hard to imagine that this team hadn’t won a bowl game before, but Frank Solich really has things looking up at Ohio. The Bobcats were the class of the Mid-American Conference last year, and the oddsmakers have them listed as the favorite again this season.
Toledo has had a very nice little run of late in the MAC. The Rockets saw their head coach leave for Illinois at the end of last season. The 32-year-old Matt Campbell takes over the Rockets program this season. Campbell has lots of talent at the skill positions on this roster, but there are plenty of holes to fill as well.
Bowling Green went 2-10 two years, but the team improved to 5-7 in 2011. Bowling Green returns 20 starters, so the expectations for this team are much higher in 2012. Coach Dave Clawson has circled this year as one in which his team can compete for the MAC Championship.
The Miami (Ohio) Redhawks football program has had a rough few years. After tons of success in the early 2000’s, Miami is 17-33 in their last 50 games. Ten of those 17 wins came in 2010 when the team had an amazing Cinderella season. There has been tons of transition in the program with four different coaches in four years.
The Northern Illinois Huskies were the dominant team in the MAC last year. The Huskies went unbeaten in the MAC regular season action.
The Miami Redhawks went 1-11 in 2009, but they made the single biggest turnaround of any team in the nation to finish 10-4 last season. Not only was it the biggest turnaround last season, but it also marked the biggest turnaround in the history of college football!
Al Golden did a terrific job turning around the Temple program, but now he is in Miami. It will be up to Steve Addazio and his staff to continue the success that Golden started.
Tim Beckman has successfully turned this Toledo football program around. This is a team that was at the bottom a few years ago.
Jeff Quinn came into Buffalo expecting to make this team into an offensive power, but the plan fell flat in his first year. Quinn’s Bulls finished dead last in scoring offense last year, as the Bulls averaged just 14.17 points per game.
Ball State made a coaching change in the offseason, and it is Pete Lembo who will be the new head coach for the Cardinals.
It’s hard to believe, but the Ohio Bobcats have yet to win a bowl game in the 49 years that the program has competed at the FBS level.
Darrell Hazzell took over the Kent State program after being a top assistant at Ohio State for years, but he was a late hire. In fact, he had just six weeks to get his first recruiting class put together.
Rob Ianello’s first year at Akron went about as poorly as it possibly could have. Ianello was known as an offensive-minded coach, but the Zips were 119th in the nation in total offense. How bad was the offense?
I often talk about how unbalanced offenses usually struggle, but the Bowling Green Falcons were the epitome of a team without any balance last year. Bowling Green ranked dead last in rushing yards, and it wasn’t even close.
