Mid-American Conference Football Awards
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Mid-American Conference Football Awards
The Mid-American Conference football awards are given annually by the Mid-American Conference (MAC) at the conclusion of each college football season. The conference gives out a total of five awards, the Offensive, Defensive, and Freshman Players of the Year, the Coach of the Year, and the Vern Smith Leadership Award, which is given to the league's MVP in that season. The Vern Smith Award is selected by a vote of the coaches in the MAC while the remaining awards are selected by the MAC News Media Association. Offensive Player of the Year Winners Source: Winners by school Defensive Player of the Year Winners Source: Winners by school Special Teams Player of the Year Winners Source: Winners by school Freshman Player of the Year The Freshman Player of the Year award was first given by the MAC after the 1982 football season. That year's winner, Brian McClure, won a slew of MAC accords, including Offensive Player of the Year three times, and the Vern ...
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Mid-American Conference
The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twelve full member schools are in Ohio and Michigan, with single members located in Illinois, Indiana, and New York. For football, the MAC participates in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision. The MAC is headquartered in the Public Square district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, and has two members in the nearby Akron area. The conference ranks highest among all ten NCAA Division I FBS conferences for graduation rates. History The five charter members of the Mid-American Conference were Ohio University, Butler University, the University of Cincinnati, Wayne University (now Wayne State University), and Western Reserve University, one of the predecessors to today's Case Western Reserve University. Wayne University left after the first year. Mi ...
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1973 NCAA Division I Football Season
The 1973 NCAA Division I football season was the first for the NCAA's current three-division structure. Effective with the 1973–74 academic year, schools formerly in the NCAA "University Division" were classified as Division I (later subdivided for football only in 1978 (I-A and I-AA) and renamed in 2006 into today's Division I FBS and FCS). Schools in the former "College Division" were classified into Division II, which allowed fewer athletic scholarships than Division I, and Division III, in which athletic scholarships were prohibited. In its inaugural season, Division I had two NCAA-recognized national champions, and they faced each other at year's end in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Eve. The New Orleans game matched two unbeaten teams, the Alabama Crimson Tide ranked No. 1 by AP and UPI, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish ranked No. 3 by AP and No. 4 by UPI. While both wire services ranked Alabama first at the end of the regular season, the final AP poll was after th ...
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1982 NCAA Division I-A Football Season
The 1982 NCAA Division I-A football season was the last for Paul "Bear" Bryant as head coach at Alabama, retiring with in The Penn State Nittany Lions won their first consensus national championship, closing out an season by defeating Georgia and Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker 27–23 in the Sugar Bowl to edge out undefeated SMU for the national championship. It was Joe Paterno's first national championship, after three undefeated non-championship UCLA moved from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to the Rose Bowl and fulfilled a promise made by coach Terry Donahue by closing out their season there as well, beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. It is also the year of " The Play", an improbable finish to the annual rivalry game between Cal and Stanford. The Aloha Bowl premiered in Honolulu, Hawaii, and was won by Washington. Rule changes *The penalty for incidental grasping of a facemask was reduced from 15 yards to 5 yards. The 5 yard version of ...
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1981 NCAA Division I-A Football Season
The 1981 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with the Clemson Tigers, unbeaten and untied, claiming the national championship after a victory over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. This was also the first year of the California Bowl, played in Fresno, California; this game fancied itself as a "junior" version of the Rose Bowl as it pitted the Big West Conference champion vs. the Mid-American Conference champion. Rule changes *Continuing the trend of liberalizing blocking rules, offensive linemen now are allowed to use extended arms with open hands. *The head coach or captain may request a conference with the referee if the coach feels the rules were misinterpreted or misapplied. If the referee is correct, the requesting team will be charged with a timeout (or delay of game if no timeouts). *Players blocked into a kicked ball inbounds will not be considered to have touched the kick. *Holding penalty is reduced to 10 yards. *During a field goal/PAT attempt, players are not allowed t ...
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Ball State Cardinals Football
The Ball State Cardinals football team is a college football program representing Ball State University in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football. Mike Neu is the head coach. Ball State plays its home games on Scheumann Stadium on the campus of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The Cardinals compete in the Mid-American Conference as a member of the West Division. The Cardinals have a 421–381–32 record, which ranks below the top 50 most victories among NCAA FBS programs. Ball State was originally classified as a teacher's college, participating in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) from 1937 until 1956. In 1957, they were classified as a Small College school until 1972. Ball State received Division II classification in 1973, before becoming a Division I-AA program in 1975 and a Division I-A (now FBS) program in 1981, dropping to Division I-AA for a single season (1982) ...
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1980 NCAA Division I-A Football Season
The 1980 NCAA Division I-A football season saw a university from the state of Georgia take its first national title since 1942. Nine days following the bowl games to close the 1979 season, tragedy struck when new LSU coach Bo Rein died when the plane he was flying in crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia. Rein, who coached North Carolina State to the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in 1979, was named on November 30 of that year as the successor to Charles McClendon, who coached LSU to a 137–59–7 mark from 1962 through 1979. Jerry Stovall, a former LSU All-American and St. Louis Cardinals defensive back, was named to succeed Rein approximately 36 hours after the crash. The Georgia Bulldogs starred freshman running back Herschel Walker, who made his NCAA debut against Tennessee. Down 15–2 at halftime, Georgia sent in Walker, the third string running back at the time, to try to light a spark. Walker ran over All-American safety Bill Bates, in a pl ...
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Central Michigan Chippewas Football
The Central Michigan Chippewas are a college football program in Division I FBS, representing Central Michigan University (CMU). CMU has the 30th highest overall winning percentage of programs playing in NCAA Division I. The Chippewas have played in six bowl games in the last nine years, most recently defeating Washington State in the 2021 Sun Bowl. CMU drew 60,624 fans in the 2007 Motor City Bowl. CMU has played a total of eighteen post-season games (conference championships and bowl games), winning seven. Conference affiliations Central Michigan has been a member of the following conferences. * Independent (1896–1949) * Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (1950–1969) * Independent (1970–1974) * Mid-American Conference (1975–present) Championships National championships The Chippewas won the 1974 NCAA Division II National Championship. Conference championships Central Michigan has won 16 conference championships including seven Mid-American Conferen ...
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1979 NCAA Division I-A Football Season
The 1979 NCAA Division I-A football season saw the Alabama Crimson Tide bring home a national title with a perfect 12–0 season. The title was Alabama's 11th claimed, and their 6th Associated Press awarded title. This was an extremely dominant Alabama team, only giving up 67 points the entire season and shutting out five opponents. The team won a tight game against LSU 3–0 and beat Auburn by a touchdown before beating Arkansas 24–9 in the Sugar Bowl. There was very little movement at the top of the rankings throughout the season, as only three different teams held the top spot in the AP poll and only two in the UPI poll. USC was the pre-season top-ranked team, and held the number one ranking until a 21–21 tie with Stanford, a game USC led at halftime 21–0. A fumbled hold on the snap from center cost the Trojans a chance at a last-second field goal. Stanford was led by quarterback Turk Schonert, while freshman John Elway served as his backup. USC ended up finishing seco ...
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Northern Illinois Huskies Football
The Northern Illinois Huskies football team are a college football program representing Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of college football. NIU football plays its home games at Huskie Stadium on the campus of the Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. The Huskies compete in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) as a member of the West Division, where they have won six championships in 1983, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2021. They have played in twelve post-season bowl games since 2004, most notably the 2013 Orange Bowl. History Early history NIU's football program was established in the late 19th century, playing its first ever game against DeKalb High School in 1899 and was led by coach John L. Keith to the team's first ever victory. NIU started out in the independent scene from 1899 through 1919 before joining the Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The team became independent again in 1925. NIU returned to the Illino ...
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1978 NCAA Division I-A Football Season
The 1978 NCAA Division I-A football season was the first season of Division I-A college football; Division I-A was created in 1978 when Division I was subdivided into Division I-A and Division I-AA for football only. With the exception of seven teams from the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), Division I teams from the 1977 season played in Division I-A during the 1978 season. The SWAC teams, along with five conferences and five other teams formerly in Division II, played in Division I-AA. The Division I-A season came down to a rare No. 1 vs. No. 2 post-season meeting as No. 1 Penn State and No. 2 Alabama met in the New Year's Day Sugar Bowl. The game is most remembered for Alabama's goal line stand with four minutes left in the game. On fourth down and a foot, Alabama managed to keep Penn State out of the end zone and went on to win, 14–7. Keith Jackson, who did the play by play for ABC, called it the greatest game he'd ever seen. 76,824 people packed the Louisiana Sup ...
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1977 NCAA Division I Football Season
The 1977 NCAA Division I football season was one in which the top five teams finished with 11–1 records. Notre Dame, which beat top-ranked and undefeated Texas in the Cotton Bowl, became the national champion. The 1977 season was the last before NCAA's Division I was divided into I-A and I-AA. On the eve of a national playoff for the smaller programs that would be I-AA, the Sugar Bowl in 1977 became the fourth bowl game to sign a contract guaranteeing an appearance by a major conference champion. The result was that meetings between the media poll choices for the top two teams were less likely, unless those teams were in the Big Ten and Pac-8 (which met in the Rose Bowl), or one of the teams was not obligated to play in a particular bowl game. Besides the Big Ten-Pac-8 matchup in the Rose Bowl, the Southwest champion played in the Cotton, the Big Eight titlist in the Orange, and the SEC champ in the Sugar. Top teams that had their choice of which bowl to play were eith ...
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Western Michigan Broncos Football
The Western Michigan Broncos football program represents Western Michigan University in the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I and the Mid-American Conference (MAC). Western Michigan has competed in football since 1906, when they played three games in their inaugural season. In 1927, WMU joined four other schools ( Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, Ferris State University, and Wayne State University) to form the Michigan Collegiate Conference. Western Michigan then moved to its present conference in 1948. Prior to 1939, Western Michigan's athletic teams were known as the Hilltoppers. WMU's main rival is the Central Michigan University Chippewas and they play for the Victory Cannon. As of 2022, the Broncos own a 52–39–2 advantage in the series. In 2022, Western Michigan defeated Central Michigan 12-10 on a snowy Wednesday night in Mt. Pleasant. The win was the sixth in a row for the Broncos at Kelly Shorts Stadium and gave them a 9-3 series advan ...
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