COLLEGE FOOTBALL MAC lands another bowl game
The Mid-American Conference will have a team in the GMAC Bowl against a rival from Conference USA.
By BRIAN RICHESSON
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
CLEVELAND -- The Mid-American Conference is tired of being snubbed. Now, it's fighting back.
"Part of our problem as athletic directors is we've been operating with a sense of paranoia, that we [MAC schools] gain no respect," Kent State athletic director Laing Kennedy said.
"The last couple of years we have become pro-active," he said. "We're not these little universities in the Midwest; we are major public universities."
The MAC has been trying to take a major step forward. This week, it believes that has been done.
Second bowl: Four years after the berth of the Motor City Bowl, the MAC will be represented in a second football bowl game -- the GMAC Bowl, held in Mobile, Ala., against an opponent from Conference USA.
The game, televised on ESPN2, will be played Dec. 19 at 40,000-seat Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
The MAC's plans were discussed at its headquarters in Cleveland during a press conference Friday at Gund Arena.
"Any time you've got another game on national television, fans get a chance to see how good your football really is," Akron coach Lee Owens said.
And that was part of the problem, MAC officials believed.
Big-time wins: In recent years, MAC football teams have beaten well-known football schools without being recognized or rewarded.
Two MAC teams playing annually in a bowl game just might change that.
"I couldn't imagine being Toledo [in 2000] or Miami [in '98] -- having coached a team that's 10-1 -- and then having to tell your team that they are going to stay home," Owens said.
Now, more players and fans will have an opportunity to experience the postseason atmosphere and more coaches will have an opportunity to stock their teams with talented players.
"We were involved with a linebacker, recruiting against Cincinnati, and they just pounded their postseason [games] to him," Owens said. "We just couldn't counter that argument. So, this is definitely going to enhance our recruiting."
Must excel: For the MAC to gain respect, Owens said, its teams must continue to shine in a national setting, much like Marshall, which has won the last three Motor City Bowls, held at Detroit's Pontiac Silverdome.
"People are starting to realize that we're a legitimate part of Division I," Owens said. "Those wins are going to afford us more opportunities."
The 13-team MAC, which includes Ohio schools Akron, Bowling Green, Kent State, Miami, Ohio and Toledo, is separated into East and West divisions.
There is a logic that goes into deciding the bowl-game qualifiers.
"The intent is for the [MAC's] divisional champions to play in the two bowl games," said Ken Hoffman, executive director of the Motor City Bowl, who will work with organizers to provide the best match-ups in each game.
"But we will have language that permits flexibility to create the best situations for the bowls and the conference from year to year."
First selection: In its first year of the agreement, the GMAC Bowl receives the first selection of a MAC representative. The plan to create this second bowl for the MAC had been in the works for the last two years, Kennedy said, and it finally came to fruition.
There was even talk Friday of MAC teams gaining an automatic bid to a third bowl game sometime in the future. Mobile has hosted a bowl game for the past two years, with the city acting as the title sponsor.
TCU defeated East Carolina in '99 and Southern Mississippi last year in meetings of the Western Athletic Conference and Conference USA.