After the publicity smash from beating Penn State, Ohio hasn't appeared on TV again... and won't for a while.  This has been very costly in terms of exposure, but also, in my opinion, the number of votes we might have received if we are to gather momentum for a serious run.  It think voters who had us somewhere in their poll already have followed our wins, but it's hard to get new voters when the Interwebs is the only way to be seen.  Just a thought.

Well, before that deal, the MAC was almost never on TV at all. It isn't like the comparison is "Should we be on TV on Saturday or Tuesday", it is "Should be be on TV on Tuesday, or play on Saturday and not be on TV". It seems to me that the quality of recruits across the MAC has improved since the TV deal, and the MAC, which was once one of the weakest non-BCS conferences is now one of the stronger ones, so yes, I think the deal has clearly helped the MAC.

The continual flow of articles about the possibility of an undefeated season by Ohio is demonstration that there is adequate awareness of what Ohio is doing.  At this point, Ohio just needs to keep defending the eyepatch, and avoid the ditch, and when the TV comes later, if Ohio is 7-0 or 9-0, things will take care of themselves because the talking heads will make sure everyone is aware of it..

Yeah, our TV deal is very backloaded with ESPN, but this is as much what I was getting at as anything.  CUSA really dropped the ball by not putting the Marshall game on TV. Great crowd, VERY loud stadium, border war and a very physical game that went to the bitter end. What exactly WERE they televising on Saturday?  And Marshall... is this what you wished for when you made the "jump"?

IMO, I think it's terrible that other sports networks don't hardly show MAC games at all. Fox Sports Ohio, STO, etc should be showing our games (and other MAC games), but instead they show games from the west coast or other regions not even close to Ohio. I understand the MAC may not have contracts w/ those networks, but they should!

As much as I loathe ESPN, at least they show some of our games. 

I like MACtion.... It gets us attention we'd never get otherwise.

being on TV from now to our bye-week doesn't do much good when your next 4 opponents combined for a total of 2 wins against FBS competition last year. Win these next 4 by a large margin, get/keep guys healthy and by the time we go to Oxford we'll be close to top 25. Then we start November MACtion 8-0 against EMU, bomb on them on ESPNU and we're the lead story into that night's Sportscenter  Now we're 9-0 and can secure a trip to Detroit with a win over BG in the following week's Black Out MACtion in Peden. We'll be in the top 25 by then for sure.

Patience Grasshopper, Marshall(1999) and Miami(2003) didn't break into the top 25 until around weeks 7 or 8 and they had virtually no TV time.

Win huge this weekend and have a few teams ahead of us fall and we crack the top 25.  The top 25 is the magic bullet.  Highlights are shown on Sports Center. Scores are shown on the front page of ESPN.com.  The Penn State game was a big help getting us into the public's eye.  The big boys have stomped enough door mats already that nobody is going to care that we are beating Norfolk State.  We just have to make sure we do it in impressive fashion.   Once in the top 25 you don't drop out unless you lose.

Hell 10 years ago, feels more like 5 years ago. Now nationwide live video is available for all of our games, most of them reasonable quality and free-ish (if you already have ESPN and an internet account).

Amen brother. I know the CUSA schools get money from that contract but you never see the games. CBS Sports is lost in an ESPN Dominated world.

You can question the TV package, but there is no question that people do watch it on TV, nor that it has raised the profile of the MAC. As one indicator, look at recruiting rankings. We can argue how accurate they are, but there is no reason to suspect any bias in them  between the non-AQ conferences. Here are the Scout rankings, by conference. From 2005 to 2009 the MAC was the lowest rated conference in every year except 2006. Things started changing after that. In 2010 the MAC moved ahead of the Sunbelt Conference by a wide margin, and nearly caught the WAC. In 2011 they moved comfortably ahead of the WAC, too, but still trailed the MWC and CUSA by a wide margin. In 2012 they passed the MWC as well, and were just a shade behind CUSA, and 2013 is more of the same.

Rivals doesn't have as convenient of conference rankings, but comparing the conferences manually, with the number of 4 star and 3 star recruits so far for 2013, it is:
Big East 3, 66
CUSA 1, 54
MAC 1,23
MWC 0,20
Sunbelt 0,12
WAC 0,4

Another measure is how many recruits the MAC teams have at this point in the year. Ohio has far more than ever before at this point, but so do most other MAC schools. No doubt conference reconstitution has made the MAC more competitive by default, but I think clearly MACtion is gaining traction. With better recruits, the MAC should see more and more wins over AQ teams. and better ratings elsewhere, like Sagarins, which is already starting to show the MAC moving ahead of some other conferences. Ohio is getting stronger, but the rest of the MAC should be improving, too.

Most of the voters probably don't look at games that aren't the "Game of the Week."  They may watch highlights but that only gives them individual performances.  Most of the voters probably make up their minds by looking at the final score and maybe the box score and possibly the recap.  That's why, in order to get votes in the polls, Ohio needs to win blowouts in the next seven games.  For me, winning is the main thing; winning easily is better; blowouts are icing on the cake.

I enjoyed watching Buffalo and Kent State playing in front of 18 fans.  Now when recruits come to Athens, Frank the Tank can just pop in a lil' video of empty stadiums before they show the clip of Peden rocking.

Then he gets to slide a piece of paper towards them and say, "Sign here."

Dead on. Considering Penn State is 1-2 and admittedly a bit depleted this year, and that's our best win, getting the 29th-most votes after three weeks (after having NO votes in preseason) is great. Just keep winning, boys!