Over The Pylon

This week the tradition continues of the MAC Blogger Roundtable hosted by one of our participants. This week’s host with the most is Fire Up Chips, the CMU site who has enjoyed quite the year with Tebow-Lite in Dan LeFevour. To Kyle’s credit, he certainly understands the disdain for CMU and lets us take our shots and he uses Roman numerals. Bully for you, good sir! You can check out Kyle’s questions at Fire Up Chips!, and our responses are after the jump.

I. As a Patriots fan since the mid 90’s I have learned that once you start winning, everybody hates you. So go ahead and vent. Give me the top 3 things that bothers you about CMU. Something they did to your team, the headlines, or the Dan LeFevour love. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, than summarize what the Dan LeFevour era at CMU has meant to the MAC Conference.
OTP: I am quite sure that a fair amount of my distaste for CMU is directly related to their success. In fact, almost all of the things I dislike in addition to the success itself is a byproduct of winning. It’s natural to dislike a team that has dominated the conference in recent memory… look at Florida in the SEC in the late 90s. Because of that dominance, the CMU faithful, or at least the ones that crawled out from underneath their rocks in the week leading up to last year’s Ball State-CMU tilt brought with them a certain sense of entitlement and arrogance that didn’t go over well. I wish I could say we wouldn’t be the same way, but I know us, and we would. So I can’t fault them too much for that.

As for Dan LeFevour, he’s a great college quarterback. Correction… he’s a great MAC quarterback. It’s frustrating to hear him compared to some of the greats of years past in this conference, because frankly, I just don’t agree. Quoting stats in a different era against different teams is a dangerous game and doesn’t provide realistic comparisons.

In terms of Central carrying the torch for the MAC, I guess they have, but it has meant approximately squadoosh. The MAC is still seen as an ugly step sister to the BCS conferences at best, and at worst, a conference that isn’t even deserving of the attention they do get, however little that may be. When Central has NFL caliber talent a la Miami with Big Ben or Marshall with Leftwich, Pennington, and Moss as well as consistently winning for more than 2 or 3 years, then I’ll be more ready to “crown their asses”, in the words of Dennis Green.

II. Akron just gave J.D Bookhart his marching orders. Do you think this move is justified, or would you agree with me that winning in the MAC is all about luck and timing…getting that one elite QB the BCS overlooks and riding that Pony as long as you can.
OTP: Well… considering we went from 12-0 with Nate to 2-10 without, I’d say the latter part of that theory seems correct. In Brookhart’s case though, I’d say his firing was more than deserved. He just has his worst season in his short career, and they are trying to build the program and facilities amidst a team that was borderline awful, most definitely not good. That seems to be the way it goes in the MAC… you either do really well and another program snatches you up, or you do awful until your AD and President are forced to make a change. I would love to know what it feels like to hire people and think they’re going to last forever and establish a legacy.

III. So its the Fightin’ Dan LeFevour’s versus the Banged Up Bobcats. Do you think CMU will win this, or do you think there is a chance that CMU get’s “Buffaloed” like Ball State did last year.
OTP: You had to bring up last year’s MAC Championship Game, didn’t you? Just for that, I hope you and the rest of the Chips nation can feel like we did last season… to know you had the better team, the better coach, the better program, and watch it all get pissed away to a team that shouldn’t have even been there in the first place. At least if Ohio beats you, they earned their trip to the title game and have a respectable record. However, I don’t see that happeneing. CMU wins going away 41-20.

IV. MAC Player of the Year. Dan LeFevour or Freddie Barnes?
OTP: I’ve never been a huge fan of giving player of the year honors to a wide reciever. I guess it’s sort of odd to think that way, but a WR is only as good as the QB throwing him the ball. Without at least some talent at that position, the best WR in the world won’t look as good. Having said that, Barnes is one of the few folks that I would seriously consider. Now… after that qualifier, it goes to Dan LeFevour if those are my only two choices… but Bernard Pierce from Temple at least gets an honorable mention from me.

V. What thing about the 2009 MAC season disappointed you the most?
OTP: I know no one else cares, but the disappointing thing from this season for me was the performance of the Cardinals in the overwhelming majority of our games. Selfish? Tunnel vision? Unrealistic expectations? Yes, yes, and yes. No matter. It was a real kick in the balls all season long. It’s not just the fact that we lost. Lord knows BSU fans are used to that… at least the fans that came along before 2007. It’s the way we lost, as well as who we lost to. Losing to an FCS school, losing on a last second play to Toledo, losing at Army. the injuries! Sweet merciful Christ the injuries. White, Page, Grant, Baker, Barker, etc. It all hurts. It all sucks. It all makes me wipe 2008 from memory. Completely.

VI. Which teams will be picked to win the whole thing in 2010?
OTP: In terms of “win it all” I’m unsure of whether or not you mean the MAC or the national title. For the MAC, I will say it will come down to NIU and Temple in the MAC title game with Temple taking the trophy and somewhat fixing the image of the MAC East. For the national title, give me Alabama on a romp and stomp affair over USC.

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