Saturday afternoon Western Michigan and Northern Illinois played in a classic football game that had huge conference championship implications. The game, televised locally on a network channel, was as big as it gets as far as Mid-American Conference football is concerned. Northern Illinois, riding a five-game winning streak traveled to Western Michigan to take on the Broncos in Waldo Stadium. Western needed a win to stay in the MAC West championship hunt.

Watching the opening kickoff, and seeing the far stands at Waldo Stadium as the football flew through the air, the wind came out of my sails.

A game this big with so much on the line, and the stands looked like an afternoon Cleveland Senate League football contest…nothing but metal stands against the white backdrop of painted concrete. If there were more than 200 people in the far stands this writer will eat his well-worn Cincinnati Reds baseball cap.

Broncos fans, you missed a great football game. You missed an incredible show by one of your fifth-year seniors, Jordan White…a player that has fought back from missing two entire seasons with injuries to become one of the best, if not most overlooked, players in the conference. He is the type of player fans should root for and invest some emotion in; he deserved so much more than just a handful of people in the stands to see him go off with 14 receptions for 180 yards and a touchdown.

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Looking over this weekend’s slate of Mid-American Conference football games there really are not one or two games that stand out to me from a wagering perspective. In fact, if I were to set my own lines for these games everything would probably look relatively the same. When I was in school that was how I would choose what games I would wager on…after looking through the schedule I would put down numbers I thought were reasonable on each game. Then compare my numbers to the actual betting lines. If there was a big discrepancy on any of the games, that was where my wager would usually go.

Well, that technique did not work very well last weekend as the final verdict looked as such: two wins, five losses. The fictional $1,000 I started with is down to $820 so I better pick some winners this week.

Again, remember, this is for entertainment purposes only.

Northern Illinois -8 at Western Michigan: This is a bigger game for Western than it is for the Huskies, and it is being played at Waldo Stadium in Kalamazoo. However, the Broncos just don’t have the horses or front seven on defense to stop Chandler Harnish and Chad Spann. WMU is ninth in the conference in rushing defense, and though the Broncos score a lot of points the Northern Illinois defense is probably the most overlooked part of the most solid football team in the MAC. The Huskies are tops in the conference in total offense and third in total defense, behind Kent State and Ohio University. Though the crowd will be up for this one and the stakes are very high for the Broncos, I am going with Northern Illinois to cover.

The wager: $100 on Northern Illinois (-8)

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As a young man one of my favorite moments of the day came when the newspaper would arrive. I would feverishly cast aside the front section and the local garbage, who really cares about that? I would find the sports section and rifle through it, looking for one particular thing.

I was obsessed with seeing what Bob “The Railbird” Roberts had done the night before, if his horse racing picks had panned out or if his “kitty” had taken it on the chin yet again.

Horse racing has never been an interest of mine. In fact, maybe five times in his life has this writer made the trip to one of the local tracks to bet on the ponies. Horses just aren’t my thing. In fact, since my days as a small toddler in diapers my allergic reaction to horses, horse hair, clothes that had been around horses or anything that could have remotely come into contact with a horse has been a closely-regarded part of my family’s life.

So, why would a young, horse-hating person with no actual interest in horse racing want to check out how The Railbird did every day? No idea, but it was always hysterical to me to see how poorly he would usually do.

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Points, points everywhere. One thing is for certain, at this point in the Mid-American Conference football season the offenses are clicking just fine. Well, for the most part.

Temple, Ohio, Western Michigan, Kent, Northern Illinois and Toledo all scored 30 points or more to win conference games Saturday as mild weather across the Midwest made for perfect football conditions for Week Seven of the football season. As the MAC division races heat up let’s look back at this weekend and see who is in the driver’s seat and who is on the outside, looking in.

First, the conference standings. Ohio University moved to 5-3 overall and 4-1 in the MAC with its 34-13 shellacking of Miami in Oxford and now sits a half-game in front of Temple in the East. The Owls (6-2, 3-1) ran all over Buffalo, also on the road, and is tied with Miami (4-4, 3-1) in second. Kent helped itself by traveling to Bowling Green and stifling the Falcons’ offense in a 30-6 win. This win moved Kent to 3-4 overall, 2-2 in the conference. Buffalo (2-5, 1-2), Bowling Green (1-7, 0-4) and Akron (0-8, 0-4) are in some trouble in the conference race. In fact, both the Falcons and Zips have already ensured that they will not be bowl eligible.

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