The 2011 Mid-American Conference football season is the 66th season for the

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 twel ...

(MAC). The season began on Thursday, September 1, with four games:

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...

played at

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

Central Michigan Central Michigan, also called Mid Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As its name implies, it is the middle area of the Lower Peninsula. Lower Michigan is said to resemble a mitten, and Mid Michigan corre ...

hosted

South Carolina State South Carolina State University (SCSU or SC State) is a public, historically black, land-grant university in Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States. It is the only public, historically black land-grant institution in South Carolina, is a memb ...

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

hosted #14 (FCS) Villanova, and Toledo hosted #10 (FCS)

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. The conference's other nine teams began their respective 2011 seasons of

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division I FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) competition on Saturday, September 3. The first in-conference game was September 10, with Temple hosting

Akron Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...

Previous season

Preseason

Preseason poll

The 2011 MAC Preseason poll results were announced at the Football Media Preview in Detroit on July 26. In the East Division, Miami was picked as champion, while Toledo was picked to win the West Division and the MAC Championship Game.

East Division

# Miami - 97 points; 4 first-place votes # Ohio - 96 points; 8 first-place votes # Temple - 88 points; 4 first-place votes # Kent State - 57 points # Bowling Green - 48 points # Buffalo - 37 points # Akron - 25 points

West Division

# Toledo - 83 points; 8 first-place votes # NIU - 81 points; 5 first-place votes # Western Michigan - 76 points; 2 first-place votes # Central Michigan - 55 points; 1 first-place vote # Ball State - 27 points # Eastern Michigan - 24 points

MAC Championship

Three votes were not cast for any team. # Toledo - 5 votes # NIU - 3 votes # Miami - 3 votes # Ohio - 1 vote # Western Michigan - 1 vote

Head coaches

East Division *

Rob Ianello Robert S. Ianello (born November 4, 1965) is an American football coach. He is the general manager with the Kansas Jayhawks, a position he had held since the 2021 season. Ianello served as the head football coach at the University of Akron from 20 ...

, Akron (2nd Year) *

Dave Clawson David Paul Clawson (born August 16, 1967) is an American football coach and former player. He currently serves as the head football coach at Wake Forest University, where he was named the 2021 ACC Coach of the Year. Clawson previously served a ...

, Bowling Green (3rd Year) *

Jeff Quinn Jeff Quinn (born September 26, 1962) is an American football coach. He was formerly an assistant coach at the University of Notre Dame. Quinn served as the head football coach at the University at Buffalo from 2010 to 2014. He was the 24th head c ...

, Buffalo (2nd Year) *

Darrell Hazell Darrell Ivan Hazell (born April 14, 1964) is a former American football college and National Football League (NFL) coach. Hazell has been a head coach twice, with Kent State from 2011 to 2012, and Purdue from 2013 to 2016. A native of Cinnamin ...

, Kent State (1st Year) *

Don Treadwell Don Treadwell (born June 10, 1960) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the interim head coach at Arkansas-Pine Bluff, having previously served as the offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach on Doc Gamble's ina ...

, Miami (1st Year) *

Frank Solich Frank Thomas Solich (born September 8, 1944) is a former American football coach and former player. He is the former head coach at Ohio University, a position he held from 2005 until 2021. From 1998 to 2003, Solich served as the head coach at th ...

, Ohio (7th Year) *

Steve Addazio Stephen Robert Addazio (born June 1, 1959) is an American football coach and former player. He currently is the offensive line coach for Texas A&M University. Addazio served as the head football coach at Temple University from 2011 to 2012, Bos ...

, Temple (1st Year) West Division *

Pete Lembo Peter Lembo (born April 16, 1970) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the associate head coach and special teams coordinator at the University of South Carolina. In 2022, Lembo oversaw the highest rated special teams ...

, Ball State (1st Year) *

Dan Enos Daniel Patrick Enos (born July 1, 1968) is an American football coach and former player who currently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the University of Maryland. He was previously the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks c ...

, Central Michigan (2nd Year) *

Ron English Ron English (born June 6, 1959) is an American contemporary artist who explores brand imagery, street art, and advertising. Career English has produced images on the street, in museums, in movies, books and television. He coined the term POPa ...

, Eastern Michigan (3rd Year) *

Dave Doeren David William Doeren (born December 3, 1971) is an American football coach who is currently the head football coach at North Carolina State University, a position he has held since the 2013 season. Doeren previously served as the head football ...

, NIU (1st Year) *

Tim Beckman Timothy David Beckman (born January 19, 1965) is a former American football coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of Toledo from 2009 to 2011 and at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 2012 to 2014, compi ...

, Toledo (3rd Year) *

Bill Cubit William John Cubit (; born October 14, 1953) is an American football coach and former player. Cubit was the head football coach at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, first on an interim basis in the 2015 season and then promoted t ...

Western Michigan (7th Year)

Pre-season coaching changes

On November 21, the day after Kent State's seventh loss of the season assured them of a losing record, Doug Martin announced that he would resign at the end of the season. On December 20, Kent State athletic director Joel Nielsen introduced former Ohio State receivers coach

as the new head coach for the Golden Flashes. Hazell was the first Ohio State assistant coach to leave for a head coaching job in six years; the last was

Mark Snyder Mark Snyder (born December 30, 1964) is an American football coach and former safety who is the linebackers coach for the Orlando Guardians of the XFL and previously the linebackers coach for the Houston Gamblers of the United States Football Lea ...

, who was hired by Marshall in 2004. On November 23, three days after Ball State concluded its season with a 4–8 record, Ball State athletic director

Tom Collins The Tom Collins is a Collins cocktail made from gin, lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water. First memorialized in writing in 1876 by Jerry Thomas, "the father of American mixology", this "gin and sparkling lemonade" drink is typically serv ...

announced the firing of Stan Parrish, saying, "As we evaluated the on-field performance and the football program in its entirety, we decided it was time for a change in direction in the leadership of the program". On December 19, Collins announced that he had hired

, formerly the head coach at Elon. On December 5, NIU head coach Jerry Kill accepted the position of head coach for the

Minnesota Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 25 (12 men's, 13 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and competes in the Big Te ...

. His announcement came less than two weeks before the Huskies were scheduled to play in the

Humanitarian Bowl The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, previously the Humanitarian Bowl (1997–2003, 2007–2010) and the MPC Computers Bowl (2004–2006), is an NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game that has been played annually since 1997 at Albertson ...

. Leaving the team in the manner he did (many teammates learned about his new job via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

instead of from Kill himself) dealt an emotional blow to the members of the team; star quarterback Chandler Harnish saying about Kill's departure, "I have a horrible taste in my mouth". Additionally, besides the emotional impact,

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

noted "The timing of the announcement further hurts the program due to Kill most likely taking the bulk of his staff to Minnesota." On December 9, linebackers coach

Tom Matukewicz Thomas M. Matukewicz ( ; born August 5, 1973), also known as "Coach Tuke", is an American football coach. He is the head football coach at Southeast Missouri State University. Matukewicz was formerly the defensive coordinator coach at the Univer ...

was announced as the interim head coach for the Huskies bowl game, and on December 13, the university hired

Wisconsin Badgers The Wisconsin Badgers are the athletic teams representing the University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin). They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level (Football Bowl Subdivisi ...

defensive coordinator

as the head coach, to begin after the Humanitarian Bowl. On December 12,

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

reported that Al Golden was offered and accepted the head coaching job at the University of Miami. Prior to the 2010 season, provisions requiring bowls to pick teams with seven or more wins if available before picking six-win teams were eliminated from NCAA bylaws, and Temple was the first team go uninvited under the rule change, despite going 8–4 including a win over eventual

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

BCS representative

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. On December 22, a rumor was quickly confirmed that

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

offensive coordinator, and former Florida interim head coach (winter of 2009-2010),

would be the new Temple coach. On December 16, ESPN reported that

Michael Haywood Michael Anthony Haywood (born February 26, 1964) is am American former college football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio from 2009 to 2010 and Texas Southern University (TSU) from 2016 to 2 ...

, who had been named the 2010 Mid-American Conference Football Coach of the Year days before, had accepted the head football coaching position at the University of Pittsburgh. Haywood was arrested in South Bend, Indiana on December 31, 2010, on felony domestic violence charges arising from a custody dispute, and was fired by Pittsburgh hours after being released on bond the next morning. Defensive backs coach

Lance Guidry Lance Guidry (born March 25, 1971) is an American football coach and former player. He is the defensive coordinator for the Tulane Green Wave football program. Guidry served as the head football coach at McNeese State University from 2016 to 2018 ...

will coach Miami University in the 2011 GoDaddy.com Bowl. On December 31, 2010, Miami University hired Michigan State offensive coordinator

as its head coach.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2011 Mid-American Conference Football Season