The 2022 Mid-American Conference football season wwas the 77th 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), as part of the

2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season The 2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season will be the 153rd season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS ...

. The season began on September 1 and concluded with its conference championship game on Saturday, December 3 at

Ford Field Ford Field is a domed American football stadium located in Downtown Detroit. It primarily serves as the home of the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), as well as the annual Quick Lane Bowl college football bowl game, state champ ...

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

won the East Division with a conference record of 7–1 and

Toledo Toledo most commonly refers to: * Toledo, Spain, a city in Spain * Province of Toledo, Spain * Toledo, Ohio, a city in the United States Toledo may also refer to: Places Belize * Toledo District * Toledo Settlement Bolivia * Toledo, Orur ...

won the West Division with a 5–3 conference record. Toledo won the championship over Ohio by a final score of 17–7.

Previous season

During the 2021 conference season,

Kent State Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in Ash ...

won the East Division, while Northern Illinois won the West Division, both with 6–2 conference records. In the

2021 MAC Championship Game The 2021 MAC Championship Game was a college football game played on December 4, 2021, at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. It was the 25th edition of the MAC Football Championship Game and determined the champion of the Mid-American Conference (M ...

, Northern Illinois defeated Kent State by a final score of 41–23. Northern Illinois advanced to the

Cure Bowl The Cure Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game that has been played in December of each year in Orlando, Florida since 2015. It was originally held at Camping World Stadium before moving to Exploria Stadium in 2022. The Cure Bowl i ...

, where they lost to

Coastal Carolina Coastal Carolina University (CCU or Coastal) is a public university in Conway, South Carolina. Founded in 1954 as Coastal Carolina Junior College, and later joining the University of South Carolina System as USC Coastal Carolina, it became an in ...

, 41–47.

Preseason

Preseason polls

Media Poll

On July 26 the MAC announced the preseason media poll. Defending MAC champion Northern Illinois was named the preseason favorite.

Coaches Poll

On August 29 the MAC released the coaches poll. Defending champion Northern Illinois was favored to win the west while Kent State was selected as a slight favorite to win the East. Northern Illinois received 4 of the 12 MAC championship votes.

Individual awards

Head Coaches

*On November 4, 2021, Akron fired head coach Tom Arth after posting a 3–24 record during his tenure with the school. The school hired

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

offensive coordinator

Joe Moorhead Joe Moorhead (born November 2, 1973) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the head coach at the University of Akron. He was the offensive coordinator at the University of Oregon from 2020 to 2021, and the head coach at ...

as the new head coach for the 2022 season.

Post-season changes

*On November 28, Western Michigan announced that they had fired head coach Tim Lester. Lester posted a record of 37–32 over six years at the school. On December 8, Western Michigan announced that they had hired Louisville offensive coordinator Lance Taylor to be the new head coach. *On December 5, Kent State head coach Sean Lewis was announced as the new offensive coordinator at Colorado in the Pac-12 conference. On December 14, Kent State announced

Kenni Burns Kenni Burns (born November 24, 1983) is an American college football coach and former player. He is the head coach for the Kent State Golden Flashes football team and the former running backs coach and assistant head coach for Minnesota Golden G ...

as the new head coach for the 2023 season.

Rankings

Schedule

The schedule for the 2022 MAC football season was released on February 25, 2022. All times Eastern time.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Week 12

Week 13

MAC Conference Championship Game

Postseason

Bowl Games

The MAC finished with a 4–2 bowl record which was good enough to win the

Bowl Challenge Cup The Bowl Challenge Cup is a competition among NCAA college football conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly called Division I-A, based on win–loss records in the bowl games that take place annually during December and January. The ...

Selection of teams

*Bowl eligible (6): Bowling Green, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, Miami (OH), Ohio, Toledo *Bowl ineligible (6): Akron, Ball State, Central Michigan, Kent State, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan

MAC records vs. other conferences

2022–2023 records against non-conference foes: Regular Season Postseason

Mid-American vs Power 5 matchups

This is a list of games the MAC has scheduled versus

power conference The Power Five conferences are the five most prominent and highest-earning athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA D ...

teams (

ACC ACC most often refers to: * Atlantic Coast Conference, an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference located in the US *American College of Cardiology, A US-based nonprofit medical association that bestows credentials upon cardiovascular spec ...

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

, Big 12,

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

BYU Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day S ...

, Notre Dame and SEC). All rankings are from the current AP Poll at the time of the game.

Mid-American vs Group of Five matchups

The following games include MAC teams competing against teams from the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, C-USA,

Mountain West The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations o ...

Sun Belt The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest. Another rough definition of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel. Several climates can be found in the region — des ...

Mid-American vs FBS independents matchups

The following games include MAC teams competing against

FBS Independents National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Football Bowl Subdivision independent schools are four-year institutions whose football programs are not part of an NCAA-affiliated conference. This means that FBS independents are not required to sc ...

, which includes

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

, New Mexico State, UConn, or

UMass The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

Mid-American vs. FCS matchups

The following games include MAC teams competing against FCS schools.

Head to head matchups

''Updated with the results of all games through December 3, 2022.''

Awards and honors

Player of the week honors

East Division

West Division

MAC Individual Awards

The following individuals received postseason honors as voted by the Mid-American Conference football coaches at the end of the season.

All-Conference Teams

The following players were listed as part of the All-Conference teams.

References

{{2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season navbox 2022 Mid-American Conference football season