MAC football: Where every day is Saturday
For years, if college football had a slogan, it was, "Saturday afternoons in the fall mean college football!"
Nowadays, the slogan would be more accurate if it went like this: "Almost every day - and night - in the fall means college football!"
That is especially true in November and even more true in the Mid-American Conference.
The MAC last played a Saturday game on Oct. 28, when Buffalo beat Akron, 21-20. The last 23 games on the league's regular season schedule will all be played on a weekday - although the final three games, played the day after Thanksgiving, are part of a holiday weekend.
On Tuesday of this week, there were two MAC games. On Wednesday, there were three. On Thursday, one more.
"Ending up with no Saturday games this season wasn't intentional," MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said Wednesday. "But I guess we'd been headed in this direction for a while. Last year, we had two Saturday games. It becomes a matter of scheduling. Once you start playing the midweeks, it gets harder and harder to make sure everyone is playing on the same rest, week in and week out."
The MAC has been playing midweek games since 1999 but it is only in its most recent contract with ESPN that it started to make serious money.
"When the midweeks first started, they were done strictly to give the league more exposure," said Steinbrecher, who became conference commissioner in 2009. "And I think it's fair to say it worked. The MAC went from being a regional conference to being a national conference because of the midweek exposure."
There are, of course, issues with playing so many midweek games - especially on November nights when the weather in the Midwest can be dicey. There is the question of student-athletes losing two full days of class when they traveled as opposed to one, not to mention getting home after games just a few hours before classes begin the next day. There is also the matter of the fans - families traveling to see their sons play midweek, and everyone making the trek to stadiums on a work night.
"Those have been issues," Steinbrecher said. "We hear sometimes from families and we hear from fans, too. We're going against tradition here. Very few people like to see traditions change. In an ideal world, all college football games would start at 1 o'clock Saturday or 7 o'clock Saturday. But that's not the world we live in, especially where we're coming from."
The conference has taken steps in recent years to respond to some of the issues. No team plays more than two weeks in a row on the road; no one plays on five days' rest unless the other team is also on five days' rest. The players on home teams are required to go to morning classes on game day even if their coaches have them spend the night before at a hotel for team meetings and extra rest, the way almost all college teams do nowadays.
"That's one some coaches might not like," Steinbrecher said, laughing. "But we think it helps. The fact is, football players probably miss less class than athletes in any other sport. There are probably basketball players right now, second week of the season, who have already missed more class than our football players will miss all season. That doesn't mean we should pretend that it's not an issue."
The midweek games can have an affect on attendance, especially in bad weather. There have been senior days - nights - when the players and families are greeted by thousands of empty seats when they're introduced on home fields for the last time.
The bottom line is, of course, the bottom line. The 2014 ESPN deal with the MAC, which runs through the 2026-2027 school year, reportedly pays about $10 million per year or roughly $700,000 annually for each of the conference's 12 schools. That's a drop in the bucket compared to what the Power Five schools get in their TV deals but a long way from simply playing midweek games for exposure.
"I think our coaches would tell you it has helped them recruit nationally," Steinbrecher said. "Now it's about exposure and revenue. That's been the biggest change."
When the new deal was signed, the plan, according to the announcement, was for the MAC to continue to play 14 midweek games per season. From Oct. 26 there will be 22 midweek games this fall, not counting the post-Thanksgiving Friday games.
On Wednesday, there were three MAC games on various TV outlets - ESPN has the right to farm games out to other cable networks - all three competing against one another from about 7 p.m. till 9 p.m. Did it bother Steinbrecher that the audience was divided up three ways?
"It may not be ideal," Steinbrecher said. "But if we're playing on Saturday we're competing with just about every other game being played nationally. This way, if you want college football tonight, anywhere you turn, it's going to be MACtion."
Ah, MACtion. It's not a slogan in keeping with the with the old "Saturdays in the fall mean college football," but it's pretty clear that's not coming back anytime soon.
"We might have some Saturday games in November in the future," Steinbrecher said. "I do think after all these years our fans are accustomed to it - they understand that this is the deal and this is one way we've been able to make the conference as competitive as it's been."
Five years ago, Northern Illinois went unbeaten in the regular season and played in the Orange Bowl. Last season it was Western Michigan going 13-0 and getting a bid to the Cotton Bowl, where it lost, very respectably, 24-16 to Wisconsin.
For years, MAC teams have played big-guarantee road games early in the season against Big Ten teams - and always seem to pull at least one upset every September. This year it was Northern Illinois winning at Nebraska, which may be looked back on in a few weeks as the beginning of the end of the Mike Riley era in Lincoln.
This year, the MAC has no unbeaten teams. Toledo (9-2), Ohio (8-3) and Northern Illinois (8-3) have the best records but six of the 12 teams are bowl eligible, although none will be going to a New Year's Six bowl.
Which means, in all likelihood, most - if not all - will be playing their bowl games on a weekday. They should feel right at home.