Why Everybody Will (And Won't) Win MAC Football Title in 2026

WILL: With QB Reese Poffenbarger back to playing like he did with Albany, Akron’s offense will play its best football of the Joe Moorhead era. Akron’s O-line is better than most, at least in terms of cohesive playing experience, and this is a team that started to play better later in the season last year: Akron won three of its final four games of the 2025 season (two on the road, 2-1 in one-score games).

WON’T: Akron’s got a great shot at getting to bowl eligibility for the first time since 2017, but can it be a top-2 MAC team? It’ll have a mid-year report at Miami to help answer that question, then it’ll have to survive midweek contests against Ohio and Western Michigan. Both of those games are at home (helpful), but both of those teams will be coming off bye weeks, too (unhelpful). The last time Akron has beaten any of those three? You guessed it: the 2017 Kato Nelson win at Ohio.

WILL: The new 5’10, ~250 pound QB Keldric Luster is an exciting addition, in my humble opinion, and so are the other transfers Ball State added across its defense. Lots of transfers Power 4 experience on that side of the ball, maybe that ends up being a significant talent boost.

WON’T: Three returning offensive linemen is a good start, but it’ll have to prove on its rushing presence: the team finished with just 10 rushing touchdowns and averaged 3.5 yards per carry (123rd nationally).

WILL: Hopefully, whoever ends up being the starting quarterback for this year’s offense in Bowling Green, stays upright. Last year’s musical chairs scenario brought down the whole offense before the Eddie George era felt like it could ever take off. Some consistency and real passing ability, paired with RB Austin Dendy’s growth as a video game character on offense (493 rush yards, 64 receiving yards, 6 total TD in 5 games last year) can easily make a turnaround situation for the Falcons.

WON’T: Last year against other first-year head coaches, George’s Falcons went 1-3 (Losses to Ohio, CMU, and Kent State, beat UMass at the end of the year). The week after BG plays at Miami, Alonzo Carter’s Sacramento State, off a bye week, comes to town. If BG doesn’t inspire much hope in the front-half of its schedule, then it’s going to have a lot of heavy-lifting in October and November with trips to Western Michigan and Toledo.

WILL: QB Elijah Holmes is the best Division 2-to-MAC transfer in the league. He might not have elite dual-threat stats, but his mobility will keep defenses honest and wobbly, and can elevate Buffalo’s offense. Holmes only threw three interceptions all 2025, and posted rushing longs of at least 12 yards in eight of his 11 games last year; he also had a couple of games where he had runs of 52 and 33 yards.

WON’T: This defense returns just four of its top-15 tacklers from last season, and it’s relying really heavily on promising transfers from D2 and D3 schools. All well and good, but other teams in the MAC have solved this same problem with promising transfers from D1 rosters.

WILL: Matt Drinkall already proved he can win at CMU with his run-first approach to offense (even with a 3.9 team rushing average), and the additions of Vaughn Blue (Liberty transfer) and Traverse Moore (true freshman) lead to better running back play in 2026. Before his injury, CMU’s rushing attack was led by Angel Flores in 2-QB system. Maybe he doesn’t have to lead the way on the ground again this year.

WON’T: Central’s defense can bank on good play from Jaion Jackson in the secondary (7 PBU, 1 INT last year), but will anybody else step up against the pass? The defense loses its top six tacklers from last season, and has a pretty rough patch of games in October: at Ohio, then home vs. Western Michigan and Miami.

WILL: First things first: EMU’s defense learns to tackle; it was the nation’s worst run-defending unit (232.1 yards/game allowed; 134th in rush avg. at 5.51). Next: QB Noah Kim takes more risks downfield that pay off. Kim was fairly efficient with the football (11 interceptions to 402 pass attempts), but he could dare defenses more with deeper passes. Per Pro Football Focus, of the 27 quarterbacks with at least 400 pass attempts thrown last year, Kim was 18th among the group in its big-time throw rate metric (3.9, 17 total).

WON’T: EMU hasn’t been to a MAC championship game yet, why start now? While Chris Creighton’s coaching ability has led to some better-than-expected records at Eastern, for one reason or another, his teams still haven’t taken that next step from being a good MAC team to being a great one.

WILL: Nobody expected Kent State to turn into a mighty 5-7 MAC machine overnight but it did. Kent State played in five straight one-score games to end the year (three wins, including a Wagon Wheel victory and a going-away present for Northern Illinois’ final game as a MAC team). Kent State’s got tough MAC opponents on the schedule (vs. Ohio, at WMU, vs. Miami, at EMU), so if it’s going to wind up as a top-2 MAC team at the end of the year, it’s going to come in ways nobody expects to see, again, in 2026.

WON’T: Kent, like I said earlier about its rival Akron, should be good enough to win six games again this year. But having potential is one thing. Having a favorable path to get to where you want to go is another. Kent State could wind up playing better football than normal again, but finish with fewer wins than it did in Mark Carney’s first season as coach.

WILL: Three straight years of Miami going to the MAC Championship game can easily turn into a fourth. Though Miami’s lost some memorable faces recently, the integrity and structure of this Chuck Martin-led group remains the same. It’s big and strong up front at offensive line, and the defense will carry this team throughout the year. (Also, RB Rodney Nelson from Monmouth has a chance to be the league’s best transfer portal addition.)

WON’T: Is there a MAC upset that should be very unlikely to happen but could suddenly snakebite the RedHawks? What if Akron’s offense does make a significant leap in the pass game? What if Kent State plays just as hard as it did all last year? What if Miami loses for a third straight time to Ohio? Depending on how this season goes, the final game of the year at Western Michigan could either be the first of two straight games for them (maybe they both make it to the MAC title game), or it could knock one of them out of the race for a top-two finish in the league’s standings.

WILL: Ohio has won the most games of any MAC teams over the last four years. Ohio has won 40 games since 2022, Toledo has won 36, and Miami has won 33. John Hauser, the team’s first-year head coach after the firing of Brian Smith (and a former Ball State player), did not lose a player to the transfer portal when he took over. If you’re already winning in Ohio, why leave for any place else?

WON’T: Ohio’s quarterback play is good but not great. It’s been incredibly fortunate enough to roster the Rourke brothers and Parker Navarro, but now it’s up to either Nick Poulos or Matt Vezza (New Hampshire transfer) to step up and beat Miami’s defense.

WILL: Boomerang transfer QB Carson Conklin is back to baller status at Sacramento State, and the Hornets play above their weight class with a somewhat managable league schedule to begin. It avoids Western Michigan and Miami, and draws Eastern Michigan, UMass, and Bowling Green as its first three conference games.

WON’T: Sacramento State’s football roster might not be as FBS ready as it’d like to be. To go from the FCS’s 63-scholarship limit to full-on FBS league play (in a year sooner than the football team was expecting the jump to happen, too) could be a real difficulty for the Hornets.

WILL: Mike Jacobs is a homerun hire, and his big import of mostly FCS talent through the transfer portal all start the season strong and they never look back. Maybe DE Andrew Zock, the Buch Buchanan Award winner last year with Mercer, can be the difference maker every MAC team wishes they had on their team instead.

WON’T: The talent at Toledo will probably end up being among the MAC’s upper crust. Toledo’s offensive line, though, returns just one full-time returning starter. The defensive secondary adds a couple of starters from Mercer, but getting transfers-down (from the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, etc.) has not been a priority for the first-year staff.

WILL: At least when Miami went from MAC’s worst to MAC champs in 2006-2007, Miami wasn’t winless the year before. UMass pulling off a 0-12 to trophy-holding turnaround would certainly be something I have never seen before. Young Massachusetts couples would start naming their children after QB “Pop” Watson.

WON’T: It’s still UMass.

WILL: QB Broc Lowry and RB Jalen Buckley dominate on the ground again (WMU 13th nationally in rushing, 2,859 yards in 2025) and Lance Taylor proves that he knows how to import entirely new defenses from the transfer portal for a second year in a row. WMU’s offensive line proves that it’s the best in the league and will use its returning experience to its advantage.

WON’T: Lowry’s late-game heroics aren’t repeated in 2026, and WMU’s defense struggles to replace the pressure Nadame Tucker had with the team last year as the league’s top defender (14.5 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks, 16 QB hurries). The Central Michigan and Toledo games, right in the middle of the year, are on the road this year in back-to-back fashion. Miami OH comes to Kalamazoo for the regular season finale, and that could end up being a championship knock-out game. Get your popcorn ready.