Seems about right...

Toledo-32
BG-42

NIU-56
WMU-58
CMU-68
OHIO-69
Akron-72

Buff-93
Kent-109
Balls-110
MU-112
EMU-126

Looks like a Top 2, the next 5 and the bottom 5.

I would say this much, the best team from the West - at the end of the season - probably wasn't in the MACC. I still think UT and WMU were both better than NIU even though they both lost to NIU. I would equate it to when OU lost to Miami a few years ago 23-20. OU was the better team, but Miami beat them that day. Play that game 5 more times and Ohio wins it each time. I still think in the end BG was the best team in the MAC, even though BG lost to UT. But keep in mind BG also beat WMU and NIU which were both teams that beat UT.

Clearly BG was and has been the best team in the East for years now. That part is easy and is a no-brainier. But in the West, NIU wasn't quite the team it was at midseason.Yes, NIU did somehow manage to beat both UT and WMU after they lost Hare and Lewis to injuries and I'm still not sure how they did it. But they eventually ran out of gas by the time they played Ohio, BG and Boise State, and they were especially outmatched vs BG and Boise. I still think UT and WMU are better than NIU. If UT and WMU played NIU five more times I'm taking them both over NIU each time. But credit NIU, they won when they played them the one time head to head and earned the West tiebraker title after tying with 3 other teams (also with CMU, who beat NIU).

I know that I'm in the minority here, but I'm always very uncomfortable with statements like this, which I see all the time. I think who is the better is decided on the field. If Team A beats Team B, they are by definition the better team. I'll concede that Team A might have gotten a break if they played Team B when it was hobbled with injuries, and you might say that you think Team B would beat Team A, if they had to play them again. However, until such a rematch occurs, Team A is better than Team B by definition, in my book. Looking at it any other way, IMHO, is to degrade the importance of what happens on the field.

This whole issue was argued ad nauseum on the basketball forum after we knocked Michigan out of the NCAA tournament. Some maintained that Michigan was still the better team. I say OHIO was the better team because when push came to shove, we found a way to win, and Michigan did not. I don't care how many McDonald's All-Americans they might have. Who is best is determine not on paper, or by ESPN talking heads, but by what happens on the field or on the court.

Well, if OHIO beat Alabama as you describe, I would admit that there was some luck involved, but at the same time I would say that OHIO was the best team because they won the game. I guess it's a matter of definition, but I guess I put more weight on what happens on the field than what a team looks like on paper or in the weighty analysis that many folks give. In the early years of this 21st Century, NIU went down to Tuscaloosa and beat The Tide. In that year, I would say NIU was the better team.

My interpretation of an upset is different than yours, and most others. If Team A is a 3 TD favorite over Team B, but Team B wins the game, I say Team B is the better team and all it shows is that the odds markers didn't know what they were talking about in this particular game. Again, on the field results trumps prognostications and expert opinion and "body of work" analysis.

Per the NIU/Bama example, Alabama was a totally different animal in 2003 than it is now. The year NIU beat Alabama, NIU finished 10-2 and had 3 wins vs BCS schools that year (Bama, Maryland, Iowa State). Alabama finished 4-9 that season. They were 8-4 the year prior and 9-3 the year after so it's pretty safe to say they weren't very good in 2003. So yes, anyone could argue that NIU was probably the better team that year, and I would agree that they probably were. They won head to head and had a much better season. Granted, they played a much different schedule, but still. But I completely disagree that if Ohio beat Alabama this year that Ohio it would make OU the better team between the two. No way, no how. I fully admit that if that were to have happened anyone could say that Ohio would have played the better game and I would even concede they were even the better team - that day. But no way in the world would that make Ohio the better overall team.

But Toledo beat 8-5 (5-3 SEC) Arkansas, so if you are looking at "body of work" what do you conclude? I conclude that "body of work" has no place in such analysis. And, it is one of the most overworked and generally most meaningless terms in current sports phraseology. I know that no one in this thread has used this phrase, except me, but I think the underlying concept has been implied.

I agree with you here. It's hard to conclude that UT was the best team in the MAC based on head-to-head comparisons, but some would conclude that anyway based on who they beat out-of-conference, which I agree is essentially irrelevant to the current discussion.