{"id":147828,"date":"2025-08-15T12:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/147828\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:46:09","slug":"the-mid-american-conference-heads-into-the-season-with-experienced-quarterback-at-top-teams-macomb-daily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/147828\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mid-American Conference heads into the season with experienced quarterback at top teams \u2013 Macomb Daily"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quarterback Dequan Finn is returning to a very different<\/a> Mid-American Conference than the one he left when he transferred to Baylor last year.<\/p>\n

His biggest challenge now comes from quarterback Parker Navarro, who led Ohio<\/a> to the 2024 league crown. Finn\u2019s backup at Toledo, Tucker Gleason, is now the incumbent starter<\/a> for the preseason favorite. And Finn, the 2023 MAC player of the year after being Michigan\u2019s Mr. Football in 2018, is back to prove he\u2019s still the best of the bunch, this time at Miami (Ohio).<\/p>\n

Naturally, the league\u2019s three best quarterbacks also happen to be running the top three teams as each vies for a championship ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got in the portal, that was just like a second chance for me, a second opportunity to showcase my skills,\u201d Finn said during last month league media day in Detroit. \u201cAnd having a second chance to be on the football field doing what I love the most.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take Finn long to find out how fleeting success can be. He lost the starting job after two games and only made one more appearance before opting to leave the Bears.<\/p>\n

But with so many proven winners and big-name quarterbacks around the league and his starter leaving, Miami coach Chuck Martin waited for Finn to make his decision.<\/p>\n

Can he help the RedHawks outduel Navarro, the star in Ohio\u2019s 38-3 rout of rival Miami in December\u2019s title game, Gleason or anyone else? Perhaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if he was looking to come back to the MAC or even to Miami, I don\u2019t think that was the plan,\u201d Martin said. \u201cYou\u2019re losing your starter, we had a wide open door for somebody to come in and take the job. It worked out good for him and worked out good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other top QBs in the league include Akron incumbent Ben Finley, the brother of former NFL quarterback Ryan Finley, and Bowling Green\u2019s Drew Pyne, who played previously at Notre Dame, Arizona State and Missouri.<\/p>\n

Each knows the journey will be challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a display of dominance,\u201d Navarro said when asked what it would mean if Ohio won consecutive crowns after snapping a nearly six-decade title drought. \u201cBut we know there\u2019s a target on us, and we\u2019re excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Central Michigan returns Joey Labas, while Eastern Michigan\u2019s quarterback room includes former Michigan State signal-caller Noah Kim.<\/p>\n

Hello and goodbye<\/p>\n

In a college football era where change has become the norm, the MAC has been the most stable conference in the FBS.<\/p>\n

It couldn\u2019t stay that way forever. The league has expanded to 13 teams this season thanks to the return of UMass, which spent the last nine seasons as an independent after playing in the league from 2012-15.<\/p>\n

This season also marks the final year of Northern Illinois\u2019 second MAC stint. The Huskies first played in the MAC from 1975-85 then returned in 1997 and pulled off last season\u2019s biggest upset, at Notre Dame. They\u2019re headed to the Mountain West next year.<\/p>\n

New faces<\/p>\n

The 13-team MAC has five new coaches this season while another \u2014 Kent State coach Mark Carney \u2014 dropped the interim tag despite a winless 2024.<\/p>\n

The headliner is easy: Bowling Green coach Eddie George,<\/a> the 1995 Heisman Trophy winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was going to take something special (to leave Tennessee State) and this is something special,\u201d George said. \u201cThis team\u2019s been knocking at the door the last three years, a game here or there and they\u2019re playing for a championship. And then a chance to come back to Ohio? Oh yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other new coaches are Brian Smith at Ohio, Mike Uremovich at Ball State, Joe Harasymiak at UMass and Matt Drinkall at Central Michigan.<\/p>\n

The B1G question<\/p>\n

With Big Ten teams playing nine league games and some schools adapting with new scheduling philosophies, there is some question whether the traditional Big Ten-MAC matchups will continue. Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher is convinced they will.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes an awful lot of sense we continue to play each other,\u201d he said. \u201cMy conversation with Big Ten officials certainly leads me to conclude that (we will).\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine MAC schools will face Big Ten opponents this season, five on opening weekend.<\/p>\n

MAC tidbits<\/p>\n

Kent State has lost an FBS-high 17 straight games and last year became the first 0-12 team since Akron in 2019. \u2026 Akron is ineligible for postseason play because of consistently low Academic Progress Rate scores. The Zips are the first football program to face a postseason ban since Idaho in 2014. \u2026 Only Buffalo (16), Toledo (13) and Ohio and Central Michigan (10) have more than eight returning starters. \u2026 MAC schools have won a league-record 11 bowl games over the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

Games to watch<\/p>\n

Aug. 28, Miami at Wisconsin; Aug. 30, Toledo at Kentucky; Sept. 6, West Virginia at Ohio; Sept. 13, Ohio at Ohio State; Sept. 20, Bowling Green at Louisville; Sept. 27, Bowling Green at Ohio; Oct. 4, Miami at Northern Illinois; Oct. 11, Toledo at Bowling Green; Oct. 25, Toledo at Washington State; Nov. 4, Miami at Ohio; Nov. 12, Toledo at Miami; Nov. 19, Miami at Buffalo; Nov. 28, Ohio at Buffalo; Dec. 6, MAC championship game at Detroit.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: August 15, 2025 at 8:25 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quarterback Dequan Finn is returning to a very different Mid-American Conference than the one he left when he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":147829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1369,1318,87221,214,4066,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-147828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-isabella-county","11":"tag-michigan","12":"tag-mt-pleasant","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-football","15":"tag-ncaafootball","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115032856061737739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}