The MAC used to have divisions and most years recently the West was the tougher division with more bowl caliber teams. This they have scraped the divisional format so it will be interesting to see which teams landed the best schedules and which ones the weakest.
The MAC plays an 8-game schedule and unlike 3 of the Power 4 conference no team has an edge with extra home games or fewer away games.
The next category to look at is conference records from last year. When I did the Power Five blogs I talked about how the records normally equal but they did not equal. Well the MAC has the same 12 teams they had last year the records should all equal at the end and they do at 384-384 so my calculations are correct.
In this category Central Michigan faces by far the toughest schedule as their 2024 conference foes were a combined 41-23 64% in MAC play last year which is a huge gap over the team with the 2nd toughest schedule in Toledo and Miami Ohio as their foes were just 34-30 53%. Five teams face foes that combined for over 50% last year and 5 teams face foes that combined for under 50%. Two teams face foes who combined for a .500 record last year. The team at the bottom (where you want to be) is Western Michigan whose foes this year were just 24-40 37.5% last year.
I have the chart color coded. Now, you may disagree with my ratings but I have all my preliminary numbers done as the portal is closed and almost all good players have signed that were out there. I have put the teams in three colors. The top level of teams are the powers. I list those teams in RED for you do not want to play them. That top level category in no particular order are Miami Ohio, Toledo, Northern Illinois and Bowling Green.
The next level is in Blue and they are teams that look like bowl teams or bowl caliber teams for this year.
The bottom level is Green for teams that you want to draw. I did rate 3 teams down here who combined for just a 4-20 record last year and Buffalo which was 3-5 last year had a surprising late coaching change.
Central Michigan plays FIVE top level teams and do not face any of the easiest teams in the league and you can tell that by their opponents record. Toledo and Miami who faced off in the MAC title game last year both face 4 RED teams as does Akron and Ball St.
There are 4 teams that face four of the power teams, 5 that play 3 and the two teams that have the best schedule on paper are Ohio and Western Michigan with just two of the RED teams on their schedule.
Here is the chart and here is how I grade this year’s CONFERENCE schedules, keep in mind non-conference games are not included in this strength of schedule.
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