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You read the previews. Or maybe you missed one. Or maybe you missed them all. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DIDN'T READ ANY OF TH— sorry, that was out of line on my part. You now have a second chance to read our positional previews. Click on the column headers to revisit the positional previews.
For each position, 1 is the best in the MAC, 13 is the ... well, we'll be positive and say they're the one with the most "room for improvement."
| Team | QB | RB | WR/TE | OL | DL | LB | DB | RET | K | P | AVG |
| 1. OHIO | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3.2 |
| 2. Bowling Green | 5 | 2 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 4.8 |
| 3. Northern Illinois | 7 | 8 | 1 | 10 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 13 | 5.9 |
| 4. Miami | 2 | 13 | 3 | 12 | 6 | 11 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 6.2 |
| 5. Ball State | 8 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 10 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 6.4 |
| 6. Toledo | 3 | 11 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 6.5 |
| 7. Central Michigan | 6 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 6.6 |
| 8. Eastern Michigan | 9 | 3 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 7 | 6.7 |
| 9. Kent State | 10 | 6 | 11 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 2 | 9 | 6.9 |
| 10. Western Michigan | 1 | 9 | 7 | 4 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 13 | 10 | 7.7 |
| 11. Buffalo | 13 | 1 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 8.8 |
| 12. Massachusetts | 11 | 12 | 13 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 11 | 13 | 5 | 12 | 10.6 |
| 13. Akron | 12 | 7 | 9 | 13 | 12 | 10 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 8 | 10.8 |
Based on this outlook, we're conceding OHIO as the dominant team. And three of us did separate, independent work on the rankings, so it's not like one specific person overweighted any particular team, at least by accident. But ... man. The worst any of us ranked them at a position was sixth. The next best was BGSU, with a mere two units ranked worse than sixth. Miami had three units worse than sixth (although they were all near the bottom).
The "AVG" column might be misleading, but it's basically the straight mean of all their rankings across the positions. They're weighted equally, which is probably wrong, since not all positions are equally important. But look at the bunching. LOOK AT IT! From third to ninth, the average ranking is just so freaking close. And even the outliers aren't all that far off.
So is Bowling Green is the second best team in the MAC in our eyes? You could make that argument based on this. And at least UMass/Akron shook out correctly. But like any set o' previews, I'm certainly looking forward to all these rankings being incorrect after the first week.