What happened to the MAC?

Earlier this decade, the MAC looked like it was on the way to becoming the best non-BCS league. They had Bowling Green with Urban Meyer, then Gregg Brandon running off two years at the same level as Meyer after his departure, Northern Illinois beating BCS conference foes and having Heisman contenders like Garrett Wolfe playing for them, Marshall scoring nearly at will with a high-powered passing game, Toledo just winning as they had throughout the 90s, and Miami (OH) rolling to a top 10 finish behind Ben Roethlisberger.

Now, the league is in shambles. Traditional doormat Buffalo is the defending league champion with a team that would be lucky to reach .500 in this league five years ago, Toledo and Miami (OH) are near program lowpoints, Northern Illinois bottomed out, and the middle class of the league has not picked up the slack (except Ball St. over the last two years). The result is a league that is struggling to remain in front of the Sun Belt, the worst league in college football.

I have identified five reasons that have caused the Mac's collapse, counting down in reverse.

5. Unable to find top-level quarterbacks
A chunk of the league reputation earlier this decade was driven by top-level quarterback play. Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich at Marshall and Ben Roethlisberger at Miami (OH) drove those teams and became first round picks. Toledo had Bruce Gradkowski, an upper division college quarterback who has started NFL games in Tampa Bay. In recent years, only Nate Davis at Ball St. (who was a 5th round pick instead of the previous 1st rounders) and Dan Lefevour at Central Michigan would be top-level college quarterbacks. Unsuprisingly, both schools have been near the top of the MAC standings over the last few seasons. and both schools have seen their coaches leave for greener pasters (Brian Kelly at Central Michigan went to Cincinnati and Brady Hoke at Ball St. left for San Diego St.)

4. The coaches during the prosperous period were unable to recruit players
Gregg Brandon at Bowling Green and Tom Anschultz at Toledo, this is your category. Both of you took over programs in good shape and kept winning, for awhile. Then, you got teams full of your own players and went in the tank to the point that neither of you have jobs any longer. Given the current core of Buffalo, Ball St., Western Michigan, and Central Michigan, the league would still be in good shape had you been able to recruit and keep your schools relevant.

3. New coaches have not held their end of the bargain
Frank Solich at Ohio and Shane Montgomery formerly of Miami (OH), welcome to the blame club. Both of you were highly hyped for different reasons, and neither of you has done anything to merit the hype (outside of one 9-win season for Solich, accomplished in 14 games). In fact, both teams have regressed lately, especially Miami (OH) who went from 13-1 in 2003 with previous coach Terry Hoeppner to two 2-10 seasons in three years with Montgomery. Also of note are fired coaches Jeff Genyk of Eastern Michigan and Gary Darnell of Western Michigan and largely unsuccessful coaches J.D. Brookhart of Akron and Doug Martin of Kent St.

2. Re-alignment has weakened the league
The loss of Marshall and Central Florida has been huge. There is now no Southern presence at all and Marshall, though not in the league for long, was considered a traditional power within the league because of it record from the time they joined. To replace those teams, the league went and got Temple, a smoking pile of a football program if there ever was one causing problems in league scheduling (13 teams doesn't work very well) and bringing no prestige or media coverage except negative coverage. A few years back when Temple won four games the first year in the MAC, the league was portrayed as a laughingstock even though Temple is much better than they were in the Big East.

1. Re-alignment has strengthened traditional competitors
The ACC-Big East realignment mess of a few years back has finally died down. The biggest winners of the group: Cincinnati and Louisville, who have gone from Conference USA to the Orange Bowl in a short period of time. Both of those schools recruit heavily in MAC states Indiana and Ohio, especially Cincinnati. Previously, players overlooked by the Big Ten have ended up scattered throughout the MAC. Now, they end up at Cincinnati and, to a lesser extent Louisville. Imagine taking 3/4 of the top players in one of the BCS leagues and putting them on one team. What would happen? In this case from a non-BCS level, it has gutted the league and made Cincinnati a viable program for the first time in its history.