So the real test is forthcoming and one that centers on part of the debate for Solich's legacy.

Can we defeat teams with winning records?

As that is what will determine how well our Bobcats can make something of this season. Not one team we have beat this year has an overall winning record. Of the 4 teams we play Miami and Akron are not over .500 (Akron is at .500) at the moment, though Miami is better than its record shows. And both would likely not get over .500 if we beat them. So that leaves us Buffalo and Western Michigan. Can we beat them? Can our players step up and our coaching staff show better game plans against harder competition? Because we will need to win out to best Buffalo to win the MAC East this year.

That always seems to be the problem with being in the MAC East. Year in and year out at least four of the five teams we play have losing records. Then usually one from the West is sub-.500, and at least one OOC team. That means half our schedule is under water. It's always difficult to gauge where we are in relation to East teams that play a tougher OOC schedule or West teams that usually have a stronger MAC schedule.

This year, we're 0-3 against teams with winning records (UVA, Cincy and NIU) and 5-0 against teams that are .500 or below. The November games will put this team in perspective.

If we're quoting Sagarin, then OHIO was two plays away from two road wins @

NIU 79
UC 53

Only uncompetitive game so far @

UVa 45 (and currently leading the ACC Coastal).

NIU is 4-3 but their OOC schedule is Iowa, Utah, Florida St., and BYU. Buffalo has only 1 loss and it is OOC to Army. They miss the best two teams in the West (NIU and WMU with a healthy QB) and have yet to play Miami and Ohio. NIU might be the best team in a down MAC and we had them as an away game.

So far Ohio lost the test on the road vs NIU and a road game against UC and neutral site vs. Virginia. The latter two have been ranked but neither is probably actually one of the best 25 teams. Really, all three on these a excusable losses if your goal is to be an upper division MAC team and play in a bowl but all three are games are games a team that considers itself the best in the league should win. They have beaten Howard and 4 bottom 20 FBS teams.

WMU is one of the better teams is in league but may be without their QB. Then a road game against a rival. Both are on the road but if WMU is playing a backup QB we may be barely favored in both.

Buffalo is a pretty similar caliber of team to NIU, UC, and UVa but at least we have them in Athens. Even still, Ohio might be a small underdog in this one right now. The next three are all going to be really small spreads in Vegas.

Akron is probably the weakest of the 4 remaining and it is at home. Ohio should be favored by 8-9 points but it is still a much tougher game than any Ohio has already won.

Buffalo is good, probably the best team in the MAC, but they are beatable. Army blew them out. Central Michigan (1-7) stayed with them into the fourth quarter. Buffalo at home was far from dominant against an OK Eastern Michigan team. Of course, they've had some really impressive performances too. I'm really interested in seeing Tuesday's game against Miami. It's Buffalo's most challenging game left other than Ohio. Otherwise, they've got Kent State and Bowling Green.

These next four games are tough but winning out is certainly possible. The two consecutive weeknight road games followed up by hosting UB is challenging. If Ohio wins the East no question they earned it.

To quote somebody, Gary Barnett I think, Champions are crowned in November.

Glad to see my concerns about beating the teams with winning records at the time has for the most part been mitigated. However I was too right about the Miami game being our first trap game.

Here are also some interesting stats, the Defense in non-conf allowed on average 38 points per game compared to 20 in conference play. And on average for our losses they allow 33 points.

On Offense we basically averaged 40 points consistently for both non-conf and conference play. However in our losses we are only scoring 28 points.

But of course that doesn't tell the whole tale as we know part of the issue has been the scoring in bunches allowed by the defense. Of course it would be more of a back in forth scoring if the offense itself didn't stall. So basically if we can score our average we will win the game, if we can't really score then we don't have a defense that can win us a game.