The pecking order in the East, if you exclude UMass, is pretty clear: BG, Ohio, Buffalo, Akron, Miami, Kent. If you put them in that order, direct head to head results give you no upsets at all.

When you throw UMass into the mix, the picture gets murkier. They have a win over Kent and a loss to Miami, plus a loss to BG. They don't play Ohio at all, and have yet to play Akron or Buffalo. How they do in those two games will tell a lot about where they fit. If they win both, they fit up up with Ohio behind BG, and their loss to Miami was an upset. If they lose both, they belong between Miami and Kent.

Come on LC, UMASS lost to colorado and Vandy by 3 points each, lost to BG by 5, toledo by 7, miami by 1, and beat Kent by 23.
lest we forget, we haven't played Miami yet and that game will not be easy IMHO. Anyway, I think UMASS has come a long way since last year and I think they're right up with us for number 2 right now.

In my post I referred to head to head games, not OOC games. I am not impressed at all by close losses to two of the worst P5 teams in the country. Since beating UMass, both schools have turned out to be pretty horrible.

Let's look at the head to head games of teams in the East:

BG - Beat Ohio, Beat Buffalo, Beat Akron, DNP Miami, Beat UMass, Future Kent
Ohio - Beat Buffalo, Beat Akron, Future game Miami, DNP UMass, Beat Kent
Buffalo - Lost BG, Lost Ohio, Beat Akron, Beat Miami, Future UMass, Future Kent
Akron - Lost BG, Lost Ohio, Lost Buffalo, Beat Miami, Beat UMass, Future Kent
Miami - DNP BG, Future Ohio, Lost Buffalo, Lost Akron, Beat UMass, Beat Kent
UMass - Lost BG, DNP Ohio, Future Buffalo, lost Akron, lost Miami, Beat Kent
Kent - Future BG, Lost Ohio, Future Buffalo, Future Akron, Lost Miami, lost UMass

With the teams in this order, so far every team has beaten every team they have played that is below them on this list, and lost to every team higher on the list. UMass may or may not belong higher on this list, depending on how they do against Kent and Akron. If they beat both, then the belong above Buffalo, and their loss to Miami was an anomaly.

Edit - It continues to be true that in this order, the higher ranked team has always beaten the lower ranked team in head-on-head games. There are enough games left that some will probably not fit that pattern.

Sad criteria; being 2nd best in the East is not particularly a prideful distinction.

I was thinking about that too. With all the personnel we lost from last year's offense, we matched last year's MAC record and were one down overall. Not too bad for a rebuilding year. Despite the blowouts, the defense looked really good. Eight of our 12 opponents were held to 24 pts or less, and we won six of those (UK and NIU were the losses). I think this bodes well for next year, when we should have improvement on offense (yes, Monroe, despite the play-calling).