If you can make it in the MAC, you can make it anywhere.

Or at least that used to be a more traditional line of thinking for coaching looking to use this league as a launch point into their bigger and crazier jobs. That was the trend about two decades ago, then things started to slow as guys like Frank Solich came to Ohio for 16 years, then there are guys like Chris Creighton at Eastern Michigan and Chuck Martin at Miami OH in their respective 13th seasons.

Then there’s Pete Lembo, who once took a pay cut and left Ball State’s head coaching post in 2015 to, eventually, end back up in the MAC, only to be at Buffalo, now in his third year there.

Toledo’s now-ex coach, Jason Candle, was supposed to be the guy to move up in the world just like he saw Matt Campbell do in 2015. Instead, Candle remained Toledo’s head coach for 10 years, won 81 games and a pair of MAC championships — both decent marks, but, for as resourced as Toledo is compared to other schools, Candle didn’t win enough at Toledo for bigger schools to be impressed with his work. So, of all places, he finally went to UConn over the winter.

Last year, this conference saw six new coaches lead their programs: Mike Uremovich at Ball State, Eddie George at Bowling Green, Matt Drinkall at Central Michigan, Mark Carney at Kent State, Brian Smith at Ohio, and Joe Harasymiak at UMass. One of those jobs sort of unexpectedly opened during the 2025 preseason (Kent State), and one of those jobs already fired its first-year coach to replace him with a new first-time head coach (Ohio).

This year, we have to flush Northern Illinois out of our minds and remember that Sacramento State signed up to be a new MAC football team for the time being. The Hornets are going through a coaching change of their own, as are Toledo (Mike Jacobs from Mercer) and, like I said, Ohio (John Hauser, internal).

For those counting, this year, the MAC’s going to have eight of its 13 schools be led by head coaches in their first or second years leading the team. It would’ve been nine if Lance Taylor wouldn’t have turned down the UAB job.

Ranking these guys for the jobs that they have or haven’t done would be really unhelpful and incomplete. Instead, we’re going to take a look at the MAC’s head coaches by grouping them into tiers. The five tiers will be a ranking system in itself — the higher levels are nicer and have more successful teams, and lower-tiered teams just have a lot more to prove in 2026.

Within each tier, each coach will be listed in order of how many conference wins they currently hold at their current job.

Not only has Chuck Martin won a couple of conference titles, but his teams have gotten to Detroit in each of the last three seasons. Nobody would be surprised if the RedHawks got to the championship game for a fourth year in a row, either. Not counting the 2020 Covid-shortened season, Miami’s been to six straight bowl games (2-5 record in all bowls).

Lance Taylor stays in Kalamazoo even after winning a MAC title. Now, entering his fourth year as a first-time head coach at WMU, his roster has the goods to repeat as champions. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any college football team these days that returns a league’s top coach, reigning conference offensive player of the year at quarterback, and a two-time 1,000-yard rusher at running back, but WMU’s lucky to have that mix in 2026.

It’s been 22 years since he won a conference championship as a head coach, but I promise you this: Pete Lembo didn’t forget how to coach football. He’s historically shown that he knows how to be adaptable in poorly-resourced places in the MAC (hello and goodbye, Ball State). Going from nine wins to five over two seasons isn’t exactly the direction anybody wants to see, but having a nine-win season in 2024 is still better than what any of these other first-year coaches did last year. Buffalo, for the hundredth time talking about MAC schools, is a tough place to win at and bring quality talent to. But if Buffalo can portal-in a strong enough class every once in a while, Lembo’s going to know how to get winning seasons out of those teams.

I think the hire of Matt Drinkall last year excited me in ways I wasn’t ready for. Army’s O-line coach? A former player-turned-student assistant for Kirk Ferentz? Was the head coach at an NAIA school? Now this is a guy with some bona fides. Last year, his first-year CMU team was picked to finish ninth in the preseason MAC Coaches poll and finished in fifth with a 5-3 league record (7-5 regular season). It was a defensive-lead team last year, and I don’t expect that tone to change any time soon, considering Drinkall’s resume.

Kent State fired Kenni Burns after turning in a 1-23 coaching effort, and him pissing off the local banks. Mark Carney won the Kent State job via an in-season audition, as his Flashes played noticeably tougher and simply better than it had during Burns’ tenure. A 5-7 finish was not on anybody’s radar. The MAC coaches unanimously picked Kent State to finish dead last in the conference, and it went .500 in league play instead. That’s incredibly encouraging! I’m generally curious to see if that’s a situation he can really build on, but I think the effort from his players last year is worthy of some preseason optimism.

Ball State’s one of the most difficult places in the country to win at. Since 2010, Ball State has had final records of .500 or better four times, and the best mark (7-1, MAC champions) just so happen to be during the Covid season. Mike Uremovich’s first season leading Ball State was obviously far from perfect, but it wasn’t a year that can’t be built from. Uremovich’s history coaching in the NAIA, alongside Rod Carey at Northern Illinois and Temple, and three solid years leading Butler ought to pay off at a job like Ball State, but only if Ball State’s able to get the funds necessary for Uremovich’s teams to compete at a high-MAC level. With all of the changes going on in the sport, it sort of feels like Ball State needs Uremovich to win 20 games in the next two seasons.

Chris Creighton’s teams have been sliding since it broke a 35-year bowl win-less drought in 2022. Since then: 6-7, 5-7, and 4-8. Wrong direction on the win-loss record and all of these three years have happened on the new contract he signed after he helped win the Potato Bowl. For simple football and contractual reasons, this has got to be a “prove-it” year for Creighton and his Eagles.

Akron’s the stereotypical MAC school where you notice how obviously difficult of a job it is to win at today and that it’ll be likely be a struggling program for the foreseeable future. Joe Moorhead’s brought Akron up from two wins in each of his first two season to four and five wins in 2024 and 2025. Last year, the league’s coaches picked the Zips to finish tied for second-to-last place in the MAC, and they instead finished in a 3-way tie for sixth. Steady improvement’s not nothing! But small, incremental wins still add up to continued losing seasons at Akron. Like any MAC school, Akron must be able to see strong transfer portal classes year in and year out, and Moorhead will be lucky if Akron can ever bring in better talent than the top-end of the conference. It’s just a typical Akron recruiting problem, outfitted for a 2026 world.

In Eddie George’s first year as Bowling Green’s head coach, his team finished below expected. The coaches picked BG to end up sixth in the league, but it was instead tied second-to-last with Northern Illinois. I don’t think that’s a huge strike against George overall, but it’s hard to look past how his teams performed against other MAC teams that were going through coaching changes of their own. In 2025, three of his six MAC losses came against teams with first-year head coaches (Ohio, Central Michigan, Kent State). If Eddie George could suit-up and play all-time tailback for the Falcons, I’d probably like his teams chances a little bit more. But the former Heisman trophy winner and Tennessee Titans great as a coach? I’m waiting to see if this year will give me the optimistic feelings I’m supposed to catch with him in that role.

I don’t have anything negative to say about Joe Harasymiak, and I have no reason to believe that this year’s team can’t be night-and-day better than last year’s. But he took an impossible job, which means he ends up on the Bearish tier after a winless, debut season at UMass.

In 10 years of head coaching experience (nine full seasons, to discount the Covid year), Mike Jacobs’ teams have reached the Division II or FCS playoffs six times and has won eight total games; he’s 7-4 in the D2 playoff, and 1-2 in the FCS. Jacobs almost seems like an obvious hire to make here, and Toledo’s an obvious destination for him, a native of the area himself, ought to take.

Alonzo Carter is a first-year Division-I coach, but he’s been trusted with a lot of responsibility as he coached next to Brett Brennan at San Jose State and Arizona. Carter has a rich history coaching California high schools and Contra Costa College, and an equally rich history dancing for MC Hammer. Last year, Sacramento State was led by Brennan Marion with his signature Go-Go offensive system and made him the highest-paid FCS coach. He was hired away by Deion Sanders at Colorado to be his offensive coordinator.

John Hauser is MAC-raised. Played for a year at Ball State, and got some coaching experience at Northern Illinois and Miami OH before he came to Ohio in 2022. Hauser was on Chuck Martin’s staff from 2014 through 2021, then was hired by Tim Albin, who is now at Charlotte. Albin was replaced by Brian Smith, who was also new to the staff in 2022, but he would eventually be fired for “serious professional misconduct” and Hauser would become the school’s third head coach since Frank Solich’s retirement in 2021.