Interesting article by Michael Weinreb on MAC football in general and Akron in particular:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7834061/terry-bowden-...
For most of us, I thought this was the most significant part of the article:
"
Akron is a member of the Mid-American Conference, a collection of mid-major programs that exists both within the power structure of big-time college football and yet stands entirely outside of it. The MAC plays nationally televised games on Tuesday night in order to attract attention, and each of its teams schedules at least one early-season cash-grab contest, usually at a Big Ten school, in order to cover its athletic department budget. And yet if a MAC team — say, Bowling Green — were to beat a Big Ten school
and go undefeated, virtually no one outside the Toledo metropolitan area would consider Bowling Green worthy of a BCS berth, let alone a shot at the national championship.
There is no conceivable way for a MAC team to win a national title in college football's current structure, and with the rise of the superconference and the growing potential of a four-team playoff (perhaps comprised of major conference champions), that doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. It is difficult to think of any group of teams, in any American sport, that begins each season without clinging to even the slimmest possibility of winning a national championship. Which begs the question: What is the purpose of 'mid-major' football supposed to be? Is it enough to subsist in the gray area between small-time and big-time, or do these schools eventually have to choose a direction?"
We've debated this often, but this is maybe the first time I've seen it in print somewhere else.