2016 Hustle Belt MAC Pick’em - Week 2: Time to settle in

Well, that was fun. Over a three day stretch, we saw some exciting football. Nobody saw the Albany upset of Buffalo, very few people (literally) saw Wyoming upend NIU in the wee hours of the morning back home, and in the Game of the Week, Western Michigan held on over a solid B1G foe in Northwestern to throw the standings for a loop.

In all, we had a successful first week with the confidence points format. Just over 30 of you participated, and while a few of you lost points due to multiple games carrying the same confidence point values, we do have some winners to announce. Congrats to kconnelly775 and TheBeanScreen for putting up 71 points in a winning week.

Full pick breakdowns here, with last year’s scoring values included for reference.

On to this week’s picks. As a reminder, please make sure to confirm you have no duplicate confidence point values across multiple games.

Central Michigan @ Oklahoma State - CMU struggled to pass against Presbyterian. Whether it’s because of vanilla play calling, or a lack of receiver options, who knows, but it doesn’t bode well going up against a solid Cowboys team. Bang bang.

Ohio @ Kansas - Holy hell, I don’t know. On one hand, Kansas is a very bad football team. On the other, Ohio just lost to Texas State. Sebastian Smith still might not be 100% healthy, so I’m going with the Jayhawks.

North Dakota @ Bowling Green - What better way to recover from the Ohio State beating than with some FCS love?

Eastern Illinois @ Miami - You know, Miami didn’t look all that terrible against Iowa. Then again, the MAC East just looked awful in general on Saturday, so the "Cheerleader" effect could be in play here.

Akron @ Wisconsin - Wisconsin just shut down Leonard Fournette. Nope

Ball State @ Indiana - The Hoosiers struggled for the longest time with FIU, in a hurricane. The Cardinals got a nice win over Georgia State on the road. I’m going with Indiana, but Ball State pulling the upset wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

North Carolina A&T @ Kent State - Even the anemic Golden Flash offense can’t screw up this win.

Maine @ Toledo - The Black Bears were soooooooo close to pulling the upset on UConn. They faltered down the stretch and lost. Toledo is probably a better team than UConn, and without the regional aspect, I expect this game to be much more in the Rockets’ favor.

Northern Illinois @ South Florida - I almost feel for NIU. I do feel for their team. Their fans? Not so much. The team lost their season opener in a game that started 11 pm CDT, finished at 2:30 am CDT, and now heads to Florida for another road game. That’s brutal, and likely an 0-2 start, which is unfortunate for a team that should be pretty good in MAC play. For the fans, HAHAHAHAHAHA WELCOME TO THUNDERDOME. It’s been a loooooooooooong time coming.

North Carolina Central @ Western Michigan - Oh hai everyone. I was wrong about WMU last week. I apologize. I didn’t think they’d manhandle the Wildcats like that in the trenches. My mistake. Won’t happen again. The Broncos move to 2-0 as Waldo is rockin’

Eastern Michigan @ Missouri - I want to believe. I really do. But not this soon, Eagle fans. Get the next two, and move to 3-1 in non-conference play, then we’ll talk.