MAC upsets are a treasured college football tradition. Will they go extinct in the new era?

New York Times

7 days ago

DETROIT — Like a No. 14 seed beating a No. 3 seed in March, a team from the Mid-American Conference knocking off one of college football's big spenders is the kind of upset that captivates an entire sport.
One of those indelible upsets happened last season when Northern Illinois stunned fifth-ranked Notre Dame in South Bend. NIU's victory, shocking at the time, became even more mind-bending as Notre Dame reeled off 13 consecutive victories on its way to the championship game of the College Football Playoff.
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The formula for these massive upsets hasn't changed, but the 2025 season could bring a new wrinkle: the first underdog to upset a team with a $30 million payroll. NIU's Thomas Hammock has a few words of advice for whichever lucky coach finds himself in that position.
'I should have taken more time to enjoy it,' Hammock said. 'That's a regret that I have, because I did not enjoy it personally. I was on to the next opponent. As I reflect, I'm proud of the accomplishment. We don't have a big NIL budget. We don't have all these extra things that most people have. We came together and found a way to get it done.'
The approval of the House settlement and the arrival of revenue sharing reinforced an age-old divide between the upper echelon of college football and teams in the middle class. The bluebloods have always had bigger budgets, nicer facilities, larger staffs and more talented rosters. Now they'll have bigger payrolls, too, measured not just in third-party NIL deals but also in direct payments from schools to the players.
The big schools will pay out the full $20.5 million allowed under the settlement terms, with the lion's share going to football players. Smaller schools are likely to distribute a fraction of that. If that means programs in the MAC are at a disadvantage, well, what else is new?
'When I was a little kid, Texas still had advantages, and Michigan and Ohio State,' Miami (Ohio) coach Chuck Martin said. 'There's always been a gap. The difference between Michigan and Purdue is a gap. Is it probably getting wider? Yeah, but there's always been the haves and the have-nots.'
The Big Ten's September schedule features a heavy rotation of MAC opponents. Those games are typically lopsided, which makes the occasional upset — Toledo over Michigan in 2008, Eastern Michigan over Illinois in 2019, Bowling Green over Minnesota in 2021 — even more special.
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Those MAC matchups will be played as long as Big Ten teams need home games to pad their nonconference schedules. The long-term question is whether the forces unleashed by the House settlement will bring these schools closer together or push them further apart.
MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher suggested the arrival of revenue sharing might give bigger schools a taste of the tight margins that MAC programs know all too well. A wave of belt-tightening has already hit Power 4 programs as they trim staff and look for alternative funding sources to offset the millions that will be paid out to athletes.
'Given the new system we're moving into, I think the pressures will be even higher at the upper level of the food chain,' Steinbrecher said. 'I think they're going to have very similar issues to what we will have.'
The best course of action, Steinbrecher said, is for the 10 FBS conferences to work together. The alternative scenario is that these new pressures drive the Power 4 conferences — and the two behemoths, the Big Ten and the SEC — to distance themselves from the smaller leagues further.
The implementation of the House settlement has been marked by clashes between collectives and the newly formed College Sports Commission, which is responsible for vetting NIL deals to prevent boosters from pouring unlimited money into the rosters of their favorite teams. President Donald Trump has also weighed in, issuing an executive order that aims to rein in a system that 'reduces competition and parity by creating an oligarchy of teams that can simply buy the best players.'
In theory, MAC programs would stand to benefit if new rules make it harder for programs to lure the best Group of 5 players into the transfer portal with lucrative NIL offers. But coaches in the MAC understand the reality: If a big school wants one of their players, there's only so much they can do.
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'The boys that want to pay, they'll just go back to cheating,' Martin said. 'We'll go full circle, from 'This is going to legalize it' to now we're hampering them and they want to do more. So let's just go back to showing up in a Speedway parking lot with a bag.'
Martin caused a stir last August when he said Alabama 'stole' Miami's kicker, alluding to the way Power 4 programs recruit players from the rosters of smaller schools. Martin was amused by the reaction to those comments, as he merely said aloud what everyone in the sport already knows.
Programs employ staffers who analyze the rosters of every MAC program and identify the players who might be good enough to play at a higher level. Martin got a reminder of that when he called a friend at a bigger school and realized his friend knew Miami's personnel almost as well as he did.
'I had trouble last year when I said Alabama stole our kicker,' Martin said. 'It wasn't (just) Alabama. I got a receiver stolen by Texas Tech. That's what's going on. 'Tampering' is such a nice term for stealing our players.'
With so many advantages, Power 4 programs have no excuses for losing to a team from the MAC. The money being spent on roster building means more pressure on coaches and players to avoid these unsightly upsets and, in all likelihood, more backlash when a $30 million team loses to a team with a payroll closer to $1 million.
And make no mistake, it's going to happen. Precise payroll numbers are difficult to pin down, but there are plenty of early-season opportunities for a MAC team to score a Big Ten upset. Miami opens the season with games at Wisconsin and Rutgers, Ball State opens at Purdue, and Northern Illinois plays at Maryland in Week 2. If you want to dream big, Central Michigan plays Michigan in Week 3, and Ohio plays at Rutgers and Ohio State in the first three weeks of the season.
By the numbers, Big Ten teams should win all of those games. But no matter how much they're being paid, college athletes are never going to be as consistent as NFL players, Hammock said. All the money in the world can't eliminate the distractions, pressures, and lapses in focus that, on a particular day, could allow a MAC team to shock the world.
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'I don't think fans understand that,' Hammock said. 'They think, 'If I throw more money at something, it's going to be successful.' That's not how life works. That's not how the game of football works. I think you're going to continue to see upsets like you do (now), and you're going to continue to see teams pay a lot of money for a roster and implode because they're not prepared to deal with adversity.'
Hammock's advice to any coach who shocks the world is to take a moment to soak it in. Life moves fast, and last year's Northern Illinois team was a prime example. The Huskies lost four of their next six games after beating Notre Dame, then rallied for an 8-5 finish and a bowl victory against Fresno State. In early January, NIU announced it would leave the MAC after the 2025 season and take its football program to the Mountain West.
For programs with tight margins, every extra dollar helps.
'It is bittersweet, because I was a MAC player,' said Hammock, a former NIU running back. 'I grew up in this conference. I love this conference. This conference helped mold and develop me. I think the world of the MAC, but as the landscape continues to change and evolve, you have to figure out a way to constantly move forward.'