Realignment news is the pits. It creates uncertainty not only into the financial situations of those moving (or those left behind), but it can tear apart old rivalries and generate even more cynicism into a lumbering beast of a sport where whiffs hypocrisy can be found at every corner, based on who's making the money and who's doing the work.

It's with this sentiment that I say: if Temple doesn't want to be in the MAC, then I don't want them here.

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Some quarterback statistical crunching was done over at SBN's Cal blog, looking at a new quarterback efficiency formula that appears to put a bunch of emphasis on turnovers and yards gained. The results were that:

a) The rating really does churn out the top five quarterbacks, and Chandler Harnish is one of them.
b) The plotted chart looks like a tornado.

Many of the QBs ranked in the top 50 (out of about 175 passers) — eight to be exact. And if this doesn't make you salivate, nothing will except perhaps chorizo: of those, only two are leaving as seniors, Harnish and Chester Stewart. Which means that Temple's Chris Coyer (3rd), Toledo's Terrance Owens (7th) and Austin Dantin (30th), OHIO's Tyler Tettleton (31st), WMU's Alex Carder (39th) and Miami's Zac Dysert (43rd) bring in yet one more year of experience to their arsenal.

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It's an obvious connection: the more starters you bring back, the more the team will improve in the first month of play. SBN college football numbers guy Bill Connelly wasn't content with that obvious correlation: he wanted to know by how much, because he asks such pertinent questions. And he did the graphwork.

He was surprised that teams with several returning starters get better, then keep getting better (as opposing to leveling out). And, yes, teams with fewer returning starters begin the year worse then gradually improve.

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Lists were made to be argued, not to be the final word. I get this. And ranking things is fun, because it riles up people! But I can't ignore this one, it's far too tempting. There were 26 new head football coaches in the FBS this year, and the MAC had just three of those hirings: Toledo, Akron and the newly-minted MAC associate member UMass.

CBS Sports, who does some very good college football coverage, had their writers rank the 26 hires from best to worst using a ballot system. Emerging from the ballot box in very last place was Toledo's Matt Campbell.

It's a really puzzling outcome. Right ahead of him: Bob Davie to New Mexico, Justin Fuente to Memphis, and Bill O'Brien to Penn State. The nomadic Todd Graham was 19th. Notre Dame fizzle-out Charlie Weis was 18th.

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You can peruse the list of new MAC football players destined to be part of the season in 2012, redshirt or otherwise. Don't read anything into the number of stars or ratings. At this level it doesn't matter. Just know that the last two MAC Players of the Year (Roosevelt Nix and Anthon Samuel) were both low-rated "two star" recruits who won the thing as true freshmen.

So there's really nothing left to do but maybe glance at the geographical clout of these schools, perhaps poke at some names.

But, really, Miami got a running back named Jack Snowball. Excellent name.

Another favorite could be ... well, Toledo offensive lineman Troy Favorite.

Other confusing signings: Kent Kern signed with Miami. CMU signed a pocket quarterback named Cooper Rush. EMU signed a linebacker named Hunter Matt, who I'm guessing plays upside down.

I hate to break it to the soon-to-be-out-of-high-school athletes, thinking that the first 18 years of their life will be the only time their picked on for their names. No, it happens all the time. Because none of us ever grow up. Our bodies, but not our minds.

First of all, I don't know if there was ever a person to be near-seriously considered for both a MAC and NFL head coaching job in the same season. But after he turned down Akron and wasn't named head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, as hilarious as either would have turned out, Tressel still needs to work. We can't all be replay consultants forever. It's a dead-end job. Especially in the NFL, where in five years replay will become an instantaneous calculation by a computer installed within a referee's brain and—

Oh, right. Tressel. There's a report by the Plain Dealer that Akron is having serious conversations with him — stemming back from talks with him about the coaching search — that the Zips alum could still be employed with them in some administrative capacity. I don't know what this means, but it doesn't sound like (and this is my guess) it's going to be a job in the athletics department. Or even if I were to hear of the assumed title that I would know what the flip he would do.

So it's looking very possible that by the end of the week, Akron is going to have Tressel, Terry Bowden, Rob Ianello, and Chuck Amato on the payroll — and only one of them is the acting head football coach. Maybe that's an experiment for you. Hire nothing but ex-football coaches at a campus and put them in all the departments. Make them deans and professors. See what happens!

Greetings, loyal readers of the finest Mid-American Conference blog of all-time. You know me around these parts for writing about Ball State sports, whether it's Nate Davis worship, wallowing about late-hit calls that shouldn't have been made or lamenting about the disappointing Cardinal men's basketball season (more to come in the future).

But perhaps, most important, I'll be the site's representative in SB Nation's weekly BlogPoll. We've been asked to do a preseason poll already, so, ya know, why not! Here it is. WARNING: I failed already by not placing any Hustle Belt teams in the Top 25.

A few thoughts after the jump:

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I've only ever heard of the Senior Bowl and the East-West Shrine Game. Those events are later in the month but tonight there's something wacky called the Casino Del Sol All-Star Game, played in Tucson, Arizona. It's going to be on Fox Sports/Arizona and may or may not be on one of the other FSN channels. Who knows. Anyway, here are the 10 MAC players listed on the rosters for both teams:

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