Only thing I can figure is Ohio owes Vanderbilt a favor after the Virginia game and stepped aside so Vandy would not lose a bowl to the MAC. Still, Troy would be another nine win or better opponent for a good contest.

Not to mention Troy is probably better than Vandy. Name recognition would be nice though.

That's the issue. Ohio beating Utah St or Fresno would be a helluva lot better win quite honestly than a win over a 6-6 SEC or B1G team.

But the reality is ... the casual fan looks at Ohio beating Vandy or Purdue as a more "impressive" win than a win over a good Sun Belt or CUSA team.

That's one of the big issues I have with the bowls ... it's like a holiday dinner and they have a kiddy table where they stick the MAC, Sun Belt, CUSA, etc in their own bowls so they can fight it out with themselves. And the only time one of the "kids" gets to sit at the adult table is when one of the adults is unable to make it (aka ... ineligible for a bowl)

I wish these bowl tie-ins weren't so strict and you could just make good match-ups regardless of leagues and let these good G5 teams play some P5 teams because we sure as hell know they aren't willing to really play them in the non-conference season.

Wait, is this true? This is the first I'm hearing of this. I'm seeing one report (http://enlightenedspartan.blogspot.com/2018/11/michigan-s... ) to this effect, but I can't tell if its a real story or a satire blog.

Looks like satire to me.

Normally those offers come out after the conference championship games, chiefly because the selection of teams for the playoffs (plus the rest of the NY6) will cause a bit of a cascade in terms of which teams from a given conference are available. There are a couple of exceptions to that: independents like Army or BYU aren't in conferences and tend to have automatic bowl tie-ins that take effect once eligible assuming the team isn't a realistic playoff contender.

I figure the Bahamas Bowl declared early because there is a bit of extra prep-work involved, in terms of going international, making sure passports are in order, getting equipment shipped, etc.

Just to play devil’s advocate, what other broadcast partner options does the MAC have? Most homes have ESPN and it is the most recognizable sports network. It’s not a product the general public is clamoring for, so I doubt the MAC has any leverage at all. It could be worse. Marshall has spent all season being broadcast on Facebook.

The ESPN deal only exists because of the midweek games. The deal would be much, much smaller -- if there was a deal at all -- if MAC games were on Saturdays because ESPN prefers a solid 8 conferences to the MAC on Saturdays.

The MAC has no negotiating leverage. Nobody watches MAC games when they're up against P5 conference games and both ESPN and the MAC know it.

Now that the MACCG is over, we should see things fall into place pretty quickly.