OK, so maybe the MAC bit off a little more than it could chew this weekend when six MAC teams took on ranked opponents. And all lost. Big. By an average of 40-14.

It was an honest mistake. I mean the MAC did beat the living snot out of almost every ranked opponent last season and made the college football nation take notice. They were the Cinderella of Cinderellas. They had nationally-televised games, took up pages in Sports Illustrated and even ended the season with two teams ranked.

But I guess the bigger conferences didn’t like that so much and may have tried to point that out to the MAC this weekend. And I think they got the message. If teams like Michigan wanted their pages in Sports Illustrated back all they had to do was ask. Instead they thought it would be more fun to make Josh Betts, Miami of Ohio’s quarterback, wish he had joined the chess club.

In fact it wasn’t just the ranked teams, but every team. The only MAC teams to win this weekend were Ohio and Western Michigan, but they didn’t exactly beat any powerhouses in Tennessee-Martin and Virginia Military Institute.

So is the MAC not what it was last season? No. They are the same teams with the same drive and talent, but they’re not the underdogs of the past. Despite the outcomes of this weekend, the MAC should be proud of its teams.

No longer can big programs simply look past the games they play against NIU and Bowling Green. Teams like Oklahoma and Maryland now actually have to make, dare I say, a game plan for MAC teams.

The MAC teams are finally getting the respect they deserve. Problem is, how will MAC teams respond? Obviously, they can’t catch teams off guard anymore as was evident this weekend. So what can it do?

Well the MAC just has to get better. They don’t have the 350 pounders like Oklahoma, or the pure talent of a Michigan. But maybe they will. Well, at least in time.

If the MAC keeps getting the exposure it got this weekend, win or lose, people and recruits will take notice.

All I know is if I were a big program right now I’d want my pages in Sports Illustrated back, too. Those pages might not be theirs for much longer.