MAC Attack Friday Night!
Thursday, November 9th 2006 (Bob Acton)

A very exciting football tilt will take place Friday night in Michigan and believe it or not it won’t be in Ann Arbor, East Lansing or Detroit. How about Mt. Pleasant Michigan as the sizzling 6-3 Central Michigan Chippewas host the 7-2 Western Broncos?
The MAC Conference is considered somewhat of a quarterback factory for the NFL as in recent years Chad Pennington, Bryan Leftwich, Ben Roethlisberger and Charlie Frye have all honed their skills in this underrated division of college football. SuperBook.com opened wagering on this game listing the home side at -4 ½ with the over/under total at 48 and the money has been coming in on Central, pushing the point spread to -6. While many football insiders see this one as being a tossup, it is hard to ignore the home field bias that the Chippewas possess.
Some would call it a mystery. Others would call it a curse. And still others would call it random chance. Whatever it is, it's something. Over the course of the last 15 games played between the Chippewas and Broncos at Kelly/Shorts Stadium the visitors have won just once back in 2002.
On many of those occasions the truth was such that the Chippewas were just flat out the better team. But there have been instances where the Broncos came into the contest heavily favored and on the cusp of winning a conference title.
Take the match-up in 2000 for example. Coming into the contest the Broncos were ranked No. 27 in the nation and had an eight-game winning streak, tops in the country at that time. In the meanwhile the Chippewas had lost seven games in a row and sported an overall record of 1-8.
Had the Broncos won they would have wrapped up the Mid-American Conference West Division title. But as it was the Chippewas turned the tables and won their second and final game of the season 21-17.
Central Michigan has an incredibly talented quarterback in freshman Dan LeFevour who will probably be flinging the ball on Sundays in the NFL in a few years and his statistics in 2006 are eye-popping. He has thrown for 1881 yards with 17 touchdowns against just 3 interceptions.
Western Michigan has struggled in the past two contests winning 27-24 and 18-15 against Miami of Ohio and Eastern Michigan. What however should not be ignored is their 17-10 road victory against ACC Virginia this past September.
The over/under has dropped to 47 and click on www.SuperBook.com for all the college football action this week.

Bob Acton

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