© Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports
Opinion: As MAC Expands, Keep An Eye on Western Kentucky
Even in February, if you blink, you miss a big piece of college football news in 2024.
On Monday, The Athletic broke the news that the University of Massachusetts would be joining the Mid-American Conference as a full member starting in 2025. It will be UMass' second stint in the MAC for football, going 8-40 from 2012 to 2015 as a member of the league.
This will bring the MAC to 13 teams for the 2025 football season. On the one hand, having an uneven number doesn't affect the championship picture very much with the league doing away with divisions. However, it would create something of a scheduling headache due to the league's new pod scheduling format. For that reason, fans' ears are perked up for a 14th team to be added to #Maction.
It's up for debate as to whether or not Ohio or Kentucky is home to the "other" Bowling Green, but what if the MAC had both?
Back in 2021, when Conference USA lost six teams to the American Athletic Conference, it looked as if both Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee would leave for the MAC. In the end, MTSU stated their desire to stay in CUSA, and the MAC wanted both schools or neither to avoid having an uneven number.
Now, things are different. As I mentioned, UMass' addition puts the MAC at 13 teams - they only need one team to get that nice even number. Is now the time for WKU?
Of course, there are other options. UConn still doesn't have a football conference and the current College Football Playoff situation doesn't lend itself well to being an independent. The MAC could also go find an FCS school interested in making the jump, of which there are quite a few. However, Toledo Blade writer Kyle Rowland reported Monday afternoon that there is still mutual interest between the MAC and Western Kentucky.
Of course, it's not that simple for the Hilltoppers. WKU and the other CUSA members have all signed the league's Grant of Rights, which runs through 2027. If a CUSA school wants to leave prior to that, they would owe the league $800,000 for every year remaining until 2027.
It's not a small amount of money, especially for a school outside the P4, but it's not *totally* unreachable. After all, WKU Athletic Director Todd Steward has stated multiple times since that weird week in 2021 that patience is important in achieving WKU's ultimate goals.
“I’ve been very honest about it, we were very interested in the Mid-American Conference, and I think it would have been a very good fit,” Stewart told the WKU Herald in 2021. "There’s a lot of things we don’t have control over, and I think we don’t live in a patient world today. But sometimes patience is the best virtue."
Has the Tops' athletic department taken enough of the steps forward that they wanted to justify the jump? With a CUSA football team reaching the NY6 last season, is a conference jump worth it still? Does a spot in the MAC put them in better position to be the G5's representative in the CFP? Is ensuring an annual date with MTSU (you know, that team that kept them out of the MAC the first time) still a priority?
The answers to some of those questions likely differ depending on who you ask.
If there's one thing the whole of the CFP ranking experience in 2023 showed us, there's a lot of subjectivity in putting one team ahead of others, let alone a conference. But let's look at a few numbers.
This past season, Conference USA had four of its nine teams reach bowl games. The MAC had six of their twelve. Since 2020, MAC teams have appeared in 20 bowl games, CUSA teams have 18 appearances. That's one way that folks try to measure it.
In 2023, WKU averaged 30.3 points per game. Only three teams in CUSA allowed fewer than 26 points per game last season. Seven MAC teams allowed less than 25 points per game in 2023. Things change year-to-year, but just looking at that one season, WKU would need to be prepared for a noticeable step up in defensive competition.
MAC offenses play a different brand of football than the majority of Conference USA, but lately it's been a bit tougher for MAC teams to break from the field. There hasn't been a repeat champion in the league in over ten years.
Or, we can think of it like this: ESPN releases SP+ rankings at the end of every season. WKU finished at #74. Of the teams that finished ahead of them, three were from CUSA, three were from the MAC.
There's plenty of other criteria to measure as well. For instance, Conference USA provides more opportunities to eat Whataburger, while MAC country has Skyline Chili.
I think we can agree one thing though: for MAC football, adding a program that's won seven bowl games since 2014 is a stronger move for competition than adding a UMass program that hasn't won seven total games in the last five years combined. That may sound harsh, but it's the truth.
These situations move surprisingly quickly, so this whole thing might be a moot point a few hours after I publish it. For now though, Big Red getting ready to show a league that stretches from Amherst, MA to Dekalb, IL some southern hospitality is a fun thought.
