Must mean that football season is only four months away.  The Sentinel's full countdown is here; USAT's is here.   (8/19 Update: USAT has NIU at 21.)  So far, the MAC has:

UMass at 123 in the Sentinel (only Ga St and NMSU are worse) -- 124 USAT.
Akron at 121 in the Sentinel -- 120 USAT.
Eastern Michigan at 119 in the Sentinel -- 117 USAT.
Buffalo at 108 in the Sentinel (beat the likes of Colo, BC & Kansas) -- 74 USAT.
Western Michigan at 106 in the Sentinel -- 98 USAT.
Pubic Ivy at 94 in the Sentinel (ahead of UK, Syracuse and UConn) -- 103 USAT.
BGSUCKS is 85 in the Sentinel (ahead of Cal, TxTech, USF & Iowa St) -- 52 USAT.
CMU at 83 in the Sentinel -- 102 USAT.
OHIO AT 66 in the Sentinel (with a link to Bikini Basketball pix) -- 39 USAT (a nice shout-out to BA).
Kent at 64 in the Sentinel -- 85 USAT!
BSU at 62 in the Sentinel -- 46 USAT.
NIU at 59 in the Sentinel -- 21 USAT
Toledo at 49 in the Sentinel -- 44 USAT

And from our OOC schedule:

North Texas at 98 in the Sentinel -- 113 USAT.
Terd at 84 in the Sentinel -- 40 USAT.
L'ville at 13 in the Sentinel

And others of interest:

Grobe's Deacons are 93 in the Sentinel -- 72 USAT.
Temps at 91 in the Sentinel -- 88 USAT.
DeRuyter's Fresno St at 48 in the Sentinel -- 25 USAT
Cincy at 36 in the Sentinel -- 34 USAT

Now if they had to face OHIO, they'd have a real "murders row" schedule.  BTW, CMU beat Iowa twice in the last decade or so.  I remember the games, I'm not sure if they were in consecutive years or not.  And, last year the Hawks were 1-1 against the MAC beating NIU in game one by one and then losing a few games later to the Chips by 1. 

I haven't seen anyone guessing where OUr boys might end up in this countdown? Inside the top 60?? just wondered what the prognosticators out there are thinking?

a lot of questions around the 2013 version of the Cats.

going in - no way. Way too many questions about the defense this year, as well as kicking . And might as well mention all the injuries, surgeries, and recoveries from such that we saw in the spring. I have no idea how many of a large number of players that we will see at full strength going into the season.

Offense -
RB - more experience
QB - more experience, no injury
TE - a step down from Thompson
OL - probably a small step down. tackles and LG are more experienced. C/RG will be new, but probably solid.

Defense
CB - much improved - Carrie/Bass/Fisher/Wells/Shaw is a ton of experience
S - about the same - Moore gone, but he was hurt most of the year. Hughes/Kirstoff/Carpenter/Ingoll all return
LB - step down - Lewis and Woseley will be missed. Replacements have talent, but not the experience.
DE - probably about the same - scott is gone, but was hurt most of the year, and Hastings is also gone. There will be a ton of guys fighting for PT, and that should mean more depth. That should offset the losses.
DT - big step down - losing Huynh and Jones is hugh. There will be some new names, and some guys return like Crutcher, but overall it has to be a weaker position.

K- step down
P - more experience

Overall I expect the team to be similar to last year, or a small step down, especially early in the year. As the new faces gain experience, the team will improve and not doubt will be better than last year's team was in the last half of the schedule.

As we also learned last year the kicking won't matter because we will go for it when we should kick and get sacked.

If McGrath and Prior are healthy and lined up at tackle week one. The Cats can compete with anybody on the schedule. To me that is the key to this season coming together.

After looking over LC's list above, I must say that it is difficult to not be a little concerned about our defense and special teams. We must find a player or two from all the defensive ends to play defensive tackle or we are going to be very short on depth there. Same is true for OLB. We have no real depth at QB'S as far as game experience goes. And Daz Patterson's injury could hurt us at the RB and kick off returner positions. Do we have any TE that can catch the ball with any consistency ? So looking at his list we have one improved and a couple more experienced and 5 step downs of various degrees. The math indicates some room for concern.

Come on you guys, I left off one rather important position, and no one noticed? I made no mention of WR. At WR, Futrell, Bussey, and Clark are gone, while Waters, Foster, and Cochran are the biggest name returnees, along with Landon Smith and Sebastian Smith. On paper WR loses a lot, but I think the Smiths are going to step up, and have great years. Contribution will also be needed from some of the Redshirt Freshmen, Reid and Rodriguez, or from one of the true Freshmen, Justin Wyatt, Cedric Brown, and Brendon Cope. Pulling a wild guess, I'll say Reid and Brown will round out the rotation.

In the end I think there is more talent at WR than last year, but less experience. Oh the whole it will be a step down early in the year, but probably a step up later in the year.

Good point regarding Dovell, who I left off. Factor him in, and you have at least as much experience, and probably more athleticism than last year. I'll call WR up, not down. That means offense should be improved at QB, RB, and WR, off a little on the line and TE.  On paper the offense will be comparable, but when you factor in all the injuries last year, the offense will be much improved, especially by late season games.

On defense the key will be how fast the experience develops. There is more total talent on the line than ever before, and far more depth, but most of it doesn't have experience yet. Players on the line like Basham, Laseak, Tautaiuki, and McLeod, plus linebackers Blair Brown, and Jake Schany, all of whom will probably play important roles this year, have yet to play a down for Ohio. I would expect that the defense will improve as the year goes on, and be a significant force by the key MAC games.

I'm worried about safety, particularly pass coverage from our safeties. Corner, no worries. D-Line will surprise I think. Plenty of athletes to play LB effectively. But our safeties are much better run stoppers than pass stoppers. Moving Carpenter helps, but....I don't know that it's enough. I love his energy, his instincts, and effort. And I think our defense is better when he's on the field. But a 5-9 safety is going to have a really tough time making a play on a 6-3 WR on a deep over-the-shoulder catch. I get the sense we're going to get beat down the deep middle more frequently than I am willing to accept.

Somebody talk me off the cliff.

Let's compare to last year. Last year Moore and Hughes were supposed to be the starters. Hughes barely played, between an early suspension and then an injury. Moore did play, but was hampered by an injury most of the season. A significant portion of the snaps last year were taken by Kristoff and Ingoll. Both will return, and add back Hughes and Carpenter, I can't see that this will be worse than last year.  If they coaches are worried about it, there is so much depth at corner, they could move one of them to Safety as well, say Carrie or Bass.

Besides the upperclassmen, there are Sophomore, redshirt freshmen and true freshmen safeties that could play.  (Toran Davis, Aaron Macer, Corey Quallen, and possibly James Alexander). Additionally there are walkon Safeties like James Ray, Casey Schappacher, Devin Jones, Calvin Holloway, and Greg Burlovich. Ray and Jones both played some last year.

Sounds like a good plan to me.