Week 10 has already come and gone, leaving in its wake a trifecta of thrilling conclusions to the very first week of Midweek MACtion.  

Let’s see who the movers and shakers are in this week’s MAC Standings (courtesy of getsomemaction.com): 

1. Rock Me, Mama – The very first week of MACtion featured one of the best rivalries in the conference – “the Wagon Wheel”. It did not disappoint. Both Kent State and Akron came into the 66th installment of this rivalry with 1-7 records. Kent State jumped out to a quick lead and didn’t look back until the very end when Akron came storming back and beat Kent on a five-yard touchdown scramble by Jeff Undercuffler Jr., snapping the Golden Flashes’ four-game win streak in the rivalry. “Heading into this game, or any rivalry game, you know it’s going to be a dogfight,” Akron’s Joe Moorhead said postgame Wednesday. “That’s something I heard from Coach Cristobal at Oregon; he said the best thing to bring to any fight is a reason. I remember hearing from my dad growing up, ‘You want to win a fight, you’ve got to swing first, swing hard, and at the end of it, you’ve got to keep swinging. So many close calls over the past two years, nine one-score losses, two of them in overtime, and you’re just looking through that breakthrough moment.” The victory was Akron’s first one-score win since they beat CMU 17-10 in 2018.
2. Red-Hot Rockets – The Toledo Rockets look like they’re far and away the best team in the Mid-American Conference. They’re on an eight-game winning streak and very well could be undefeated if not for their last-second loss to Illinois the very first week of the season. This week, they welcomed Buffalo to the Glass Bowl, which looked more like a snow globe, and took care of business handily, 31-13. Peny Boone handled the load for Toledo, toting the rock 12 times for 125 yards and a 71-yard touchdown run. The game opened with a bang when Jacquez Stuart took the opening kick 97 yards to the house. “The kicking game, Jacquez Stuart’s kickoff to open the game, I thought was huge. I thought that was a really well-blocked play. Good job throughout the course of the week of getting a plan and the guys executing the plan and doing it at a high level,” Toledo head coach Jason Candle said. “That was really great to see and a really good start – it really propelled us to victory.” 
3. Falcons, Chips hold off late-game heroics – On both nights of MACtion, we saw comeback attempts from Northern Illinois and Ball State, both falling short. On Tuesday, Central Michigan jumped out to a huge lead, leading by as much as three scores, but the Huskies pushed back. NIU was marching down the field with 67 seconds left in the game before Rocky Lombardi threw a costly interception to seal their fate. Down in Northwest Ohio, a great second half by Ball State had them in position to win or to take Bowling Green to overtime – after two straight incompletions, Jackson Courville rushed out onto the field to attempt a 55-yard field goal, which had neither the aim nor the distance. Had he made it, the kick would’ve beaten his season and career record by 18 yards. “Obviously I hurt for our football team right now. It stinks right now, but first and foremost, the fight from our guys I appreciate. There’s definitely no quit in our football team. At the end of the day, we lost a three-point game to a team who, in the last half of the season, has thrived in the turnover margin,” Ball State’s Mike Neu said. “We got ourselves in a minus-two deficit tonight, that’s a tough formula. Our guys fought, we had a chance at the end of the football game there, but you have to credit Bowling Green for doing a good job at finding a way to win. We cannot turn the football over in order to have a chance to win week-in, week-out and put ourselves in a position to win.”  

Here’s a look at next week’s midweek matchups (courtesy of getsomemaction.com): 

 For more stories related to BGSU Athletics, follow Falcon Media Sports Network on X (@bg_fmsn).