MACtastrophe: Inside the Big Ten's Worst Yearly Tradition

Northwestern won 10 games last season and has arguably the Big Ten's best defensive player. It even got one media pick to win the Big Ten West over Iowa and Nebraska.

It started this season with a loss at home to Western Michigan. This means the Big Ten's 10-year streak of at least one conference member losing to a MAC squad became an 11-year streak after the first kickoff slot (noon ET) on the first Saturday of the season.

This is the "MACtastrophe", a portmanteau with only a little hyperbole. No MAC player seriously evaluates a MAC offer over one from even a bottom-feeder Big Ten program like Purdue. Yet, the dregs of the Big Ten, and even some programs in the mid-tier, still manage to lose to a MAC squad every year. This streak started in 2006 with a mid-season Illinois loss to Ohio and continued on Saturday into its 11th year.

These MACtastrophes matter the extent to which they become cherry-picked observations to assert statements about a conference maligned in the recent past for its poor quality demonstrated elsewhere. It's fitting the ongoing streak of MACtastrophes starts the same season in which Ohio State and Michigan crashed and burned in the 2006 post-season, taking perceptions of the Big Ten south with them for several years.

The table to the right shows every Big Ten program that has lost to a MAC school during this 11-year stretch. The table is remarkable for how many Big Ten programs it includes. Not even Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State had been spared MACtastrophes in the recent past. We can qualify that the 2008 Michigan team was arguably the worst in that program's rich history and that Penn State was in a difficult spot to begin 2012 for reasons tangential to football, but we'd still return to the simple observation that none of the players on the 2008 Michigan and 2012 Penn State squads seriously considered their MAC offers. Likewise, players on Toledo or Ohio would likely have jumped at the chance to attend Michigan or Penn State if they were presented the opportunity.

The only four Big Ten programs not included on this stretch are Nebraska, Ohio State, Rutgers, and Wisconsin. Nebraska and Rutgers, two recent additions to the conference, had not played a MAC team during their tenures and do not look to the MAC to round out non-conference schedules. Nebraska looks to the Conference USA or the Mountain West while Rutgers had scheduled teams from the Pac-12, Big XII and SEC and plays a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) team every year.

Effectively, only Ohio State and Wisconsin in the Big Ten, the two best programs in their respective divisions for the past decade, finished all their MAC snacks without controversy. If over 70% of the Big Ten has at least one MAC loss over the past decade, at least the two best had not yet fallen prey.

The list of MACtastrophes presents further qualifiers. Purdue is conspicuous on this list. Big Ten fans know Purdue as the greatest argument for a Big Ten "suck tax". Indiana, another program that finishes at or near the bottom in the conference every year, has five MAC losses over this stretch.

Further, some MAC programs recur on this list. Dino Babers' Bowling Green was arguably the best program in the MAC before he left for Syracuse this year. Northern Illinois was the class of the MAC before it. Jerry Kill and Dave Doeren used those Big Ten upsets to secure promotions to Minnesota and NC State. Central Michigan, likewise, had a great run through the MAC before Northern Illinois. Butch Jones, who scored two Big Ten wins in his three years at Central Michigan, used those to follow Brian Kelly's footsteps to Cincinnati.

These observations still circle us to the main problem. Purdue runs its whole athletic department to maximize the most profit knowing that equal Big Ten revenue-sharing is guaranteed. The MAC is also a training ground for tomorrow's next great college football coach. Still, Purdue, until recently, outrecruits every MAC program. Further, no player on Butch Jones' 2009 Chippewas team had a credible offer from Michigan State. Otherwise, he would've been on the other side of the field for that MACtastrophe.

The problem might be less that these MACtastrophes recur and more the emphasis that we as commentators place on them. Notwithstanding 22 losses to MAC programs from 2006 to 2015, the Big Ten still won 115 contests against the MAC over the same period. That is a win rate of 84% for the league over a junior conference. Like the Texas sharpshooter, we may cherry pick a handful of MACtastrophes to arrive at a wrong conclusion about the quality of the Big Ten.

However, the conference collectively does itself no favors when these losses happen. Indiana and Purdue have no business losing games against opponents that do not have the same endowment or talent. Losses by Iowa or Michigan State are even more inexplicable. There's no "stick" to ensure programs like Purdue are sufficiently invested to win those contests either. Further, that Big Ten win rate against the MAC is still less than what the SEC does against similar conferences like the Conference USA or the Sun Belt. The Big Ten may still deserve some grief for the litany of these MACtastrophes over an 11-year stretch.

Ultimately, the Big Ten will spare itself this grief once all its members can reliably beat even good teams from junior conferences like the MAC.

Alternatively, it could do what Purdue did. With five losses in 10 years to MAC programs, Purdue decided to not schedule one this year.