When is the Mid-American Conference going to get some respect?

Is it going to be when the MAC has a team ranked in the Top 25? Will it happen when a MAC basketball program beats a big-name team?

Oh, wait, those things already happened.

The Toledo football team, who beat Penn State at the beginning of the season, was No. 25 in the Associated Press rankings at the end of the season, and the Toledo men’s basketball team beat Cincinnati, which advanced to the Elite Eight, at the beginning of the season.

Did any of those programs go to post-season play? I don’t think so.

The reason why: lack of respect for the MAC.

There’s no respect for the conference. Never was, never will be. I don’t know why it’s like that, but some people would rather see a 6-5 North Carolina team in a post-season bowl game than a 10-1 Toledo team. Must be the money.

The MAC has tried to get another bowl bid for football. The conference had its hands on the Hoosier Bowl, but that fell through after the NCAA didn’t let the bowl go through. The MAC tried to get a possible bid in the Las Vegas Bowl, but that didn’t happen when it went to an at-large bid. In 1999, Marshall was ranked No. 12 by the AP and was not invited to any of the BCS bowls — Fiesta, Orange, Sugar or Rose. Consolation prize: the Motor City Bowl.

The MAC could not get any at-large bids for basketball this season. Kent State was the lone MAC entry for the NCAA Tournament, while Toledo was the lone NIT entry. Toledo deserved to be in the NCAA Tournament, especially after defeating Cincinnati and being ranked No. 1 in the RPI poll at the beginning of December. Central Michigan, which won the MAC regular season title, and Marshall deserved to be in the NIT.

It’s lack of respect.

Dennis Helsel, Akron’s athletics director, said the reason the MAC is having trouble is because not many people know the MAC exists. He said he literally has to beg to put teams on the schedule.

“I sent letters last year to [teams in] the bottom half of every conference in the country, offering to play two games at their place for one game here,” he told the Tribune Review in September. “You know how many responses I got? None.”

When will teams realize the potential the MAC has? Slim to none that they ever will. I think it’s safe to say that Penn State will never want to play Toledo again in football. They don’t want to take the chance of losing.

And because of that logic, the MAC will probably be stuck playing Division I-AA teams and teams in the lower end of Division I-A status. Respect won’t be earned that way.

Respect wasn’t earned after the Rockets defeated the Nittnany Lions. People looked at that game and said, “Wait, Penn State had an off-year. That means the Toledo win does not mean anything.” To the MAC, it does. Toledo earned the respect from its peers in the conference, but will never get it from the outside.

Something better change for the MAC, either internally or externally. I don’t know what it takes, but the conference better find a way to make people believe that the MAC is a strong conference and can compete with anyone in the NCAA.