by Clyde Hughes
Local college football fans will be cheering wildly—when they’re not holding their collective breath—because, based on the lofty predictions of experts, their teams have a lot to live up to.
For starters, Bowling Green has been picked to win the Mid-American Conference East Division title, while Toledo was tapped to win the West Division. The BGSU Falcons are predicted to win it all in the MAC championship game.
In the Big Ten, where Toledo boasts the ultimate Ohio State-Michigan battle line (or is that Michigan-Ohio State?), the Buckeyes, Michigan State, and the Wolverines are predicted to finish one-two-three in the East Division, according to a Cleveland.com poll of league media representatives.
Division III Heidelberg University, in Tiffin, is ranked No. 20 in the country among that division's schools and is predicted in many polls to finish right behind mighty Mount Union in the Ohio Athletic Association.
Plenty to cheer about while your face turns blue.
Bowling Green's MAC title prediction is a heck of an endorsement for first-year coach Dino Babers, who arrives in Northwest Ohio after leading Eastern Illinois to a No. 2 ranking in the national Football Championship Series poll and a quarterfinals playoff appearance. That Eastern Illinois team developed a reputation for giving press box statisticians headaches, averaging 589.5 yards and 48.2 points per game last season, to lead all FCS schools.
This year, Babers has the luxury to pass those expectations on to Falcon junior quarterback Matt Johnson, who threw for 3,467 yards and 25 touchdowns last season, while junior running back Travis Greene added another 1,594 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground.
Matt Campbell has called the Toledo Rockets his "most complete" squad in his six years as head coach. Only graduating nine seniors from his two-deep depth chart last year, Campbell can make that boast with the return of first-team All-MAC linebacker Junior Sylvester and Lou Groza Award candidate Jeremiah Detmer kicking the pigskin.
Toledo has some extra incentive early when it welcomes back former coach Gary Pinkel and his Missouri Tigers to the Glass Bowl Sept. 6. Pinkel coached Toledo from 1991 to 2000, leaving as the school's winningest football coach, and led Missouri to the East Division championship of the powerful Southeastern Conference a year ago.
The Buckeyes will have to lean on its defense more, after Heisman Trophy candidate Braxton Miller injured his right shoulder in practice and is out for the season. Miller hurt the same shoulder during the Orange Bowl in January and had surgery on it in February.
In his place, Ohio State Head Coach Urban Meyer will go with untested redshirt freshman J.T. Barrett, who was listed third on the Buckeye depth chart going into August. Barrett, known as a gifted runner, will to be faced with trying to improve his passing against Big Ten defenses. He should get help from Jeff Heuerman, one of the league’s top tight ends.
Brady Hoke will be trying to return Michigan to the Top 25. He said during a press conference this month that the Wolverine team needs to find its own identity.
"(They have) not yet (found the team identity) but we talk about it every day," Hoke said. "It's what they want to make it."
Michigan returns Devin Funchess, the Big Ten's Kwalick-Clark Tight End of the Year winner, All-Big Ten defensive back Blake Countess (46 tackles, six interceptions) and quarterback Devin Gardner.
Michigan State finished No. 3 in the country last year after winning the Big Ten title game against Ohio State and the 2014 Rose Bowl. They enter the season ranked No. 8 nationally.
"There's a responsibility that just goes with being here,” said head coach Mark Dantonio. “There's also responsibility that goes with winning, how we carry ourselves, and how we handle ourselves, and then the expectations and how we live up to those expectations."
Heidelberg coach Mike Hallett transformed a squad that had lost 36 straight games when he started in 2007 to a team that has compiled a 25-6 record (.806) over the last three seasons. That's not an easy feat in the Ohio Athletic Conference, which is considered one of the toughest Division III conferences in the country, home of perennial powerhouse Mount Union.
The Student Princes are led by D3Football.com's preseason All-Americans Cartel Brooks, who rushed for 465 yards in one game last year; defensive lineman Ben Poirer and center Alex Damschroder.
