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Let's Send the Bobcats Bowling!

As of right now, here's how we should be watching the rest of the MAC play out as it pertains to Ohio's chances of going bowling.

The MAC has 6 guaranteed bowl slots to fill. BG, Toledo, and NIU have three of those slots all but locked down. BG plays Toledo tonight and Ball St next week, and if they win out, there's a chance that at 10-2 they could go to one of the New Year's Eve bowls and give room for another MAC team to fill out one of the conference's guaranteed bowls. Root for BG as hard as you can.

The threshold teams to fill the remaining 3 (or 4, pending BG) slots are Ohio (6-4), WMU (6-4), Akron (5-5), Buffalo (5-5), and CMU (5-5). I have all the faith in the world that we'll beat Ball St tonight, and though we could get lucky against NIU with a healthy defense and a productive and balanced offense, let's play with the scenario that we finish the season 7-5 (as much as winning out is an ideal, and a possible one at that).

WMU plays NIU and Toledo next, and though I predict they'll definitely lose one, there's also a high chance they'll lose both. Root for WMU to lose out and go 6-6. (but if they go 7-5, we still have room to breathe).

Akron plays Buffalo and Kent St next. This is a toss-up because their skill level hovers in the same range as both these teams, but Akron isn't really known for being dependable. They could either win both, lose both, or split it. The ideal scenario for us is that they split, so root for them against Buffalo but hope they lose to Kent St and finish 6-6. If they beat Kent and lose to Buffalo, don't cry, they'll still be 6-6, but them losing to both Buffalo AND Kent would be better than beating Kent, so they would be ineligible. Best case scenario, Akron beats Buffalo and loses to Kent; decent scenario, they lose out; less favorable (but not damning) scenario, beat Kent and lose to Buffalo.

Buffalo has Akron and UMass on deck. Them losing out would be AMAZING (a 7-5 Akron would be better to have in the fray than a 7-5 Buffalo), but UMass poses little threat. Don't count on them to win. They could very easily win out and go 7-5 as well, but root for them to lose to Akron (which is more possible than you may think) and expect them to beat UMass. They'll almost certainly go 7-5 or 6-6.

CMU is interesting at 5-5, as they play Kent and EMU next. EMU is abysmally winless in conference play this year, and though the games between the directional Michigans can sometimes go either way, notch a W there for CMU. Kent obviously can't defend the run terribly well (look at what we did to them), but if they show up against the pass, CMU could be in for a doozy. A possible 6-6 finish for them, but most signs point to them going 7-5.

I didn't call NIU a threshold team (even with a current 7-3 record) because with their last two again WMU and Ohio, I don't see them losing out. Even if they split one way or the other, they'd still finish 8-4 and have a bid on a silver platter. If they somehow DID lose out (and humbly assuming Ohio wins tonight), no matter how WMU would finish, Ohio would go 8-4 and have a bowl.

Let's say the football gods REALLY want to worry us (still under the humble, fair assumption that Ohio wins tonight). Ohio, WMU, CMU, and Buffalo/Akron* all finish 7-5. *(Because of their head-to-head matchup, either Buffalo or Akron will end up 7-5, but not both. Whoever loses the game between them is out of the MAC bowl picture if they finish with 6 wins, even if eligible.) The conference records as a result would be 4-4 Ohio, 5-3 Buffalo/Akron, 6-2 WMU, 6-2 CMU. If the bells of providence ring and BG gets a NYE bowl and leaves four MAC bowl slots under Toledo and NIU, hooray! We get to go somewhere! If BG gets a MAC bowl, we have almost nothing to do but to pray a non-MAC bowl invites us as an at-large bid (much like 2012's Independence Bowl and 2013's Beef O'Brady's Bowl). If in the unfortunate event we lose out and finish the year at 6-6, that's two years straight with that record and no bowl. And like I said, if we win out and go 8-4, screw everyone else! Let's enjoy our bowl!

TL;DR: Under the assumption Ohio beats Ball St and loses to NIU, pray for NIU to have beaten WMU and Akron to have beaten Buffalo. As far as I can tell (from my superfluous analysis), that's our safest, "realist-est" bet on securing a bowl bid.

Go Bobcats!

This post was submitted by one of our esteemed readers and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or thoughts of Hustle Belt or SB Nation.