MAC has a potential mess on its hands

It may well prove a moot point, so long as the Mid-American Conference gets the tidy outcome it no doubt prefers and the Bowling Green football team loses to Ohio on Tuesday night.

But what if it doesn’t?

Are you ready for the mother of all MAC controversies?

A shafting as ridiculous as it is wrong awaits.

If Bowling Green beats Ohio, it faces the very real prospect of finishing 6-2 in the MAC East but losing the division title — and the opportunity to play Toledo in the league championship game — to a team with a lesser record.

Yep, that’s the scenario the conference is surely dreading, courtesy of the “uneven number of games” tiebreaker policy that it drew up during the pandemic and is now dragging back out after the Akron-Buffalo game Saturday was called on account of snow.

While the NFL was on top of a snowstorm the Farmers’ Almanac forecast roughly four years ago and made contingency plans Thursday for a game scheduled Sunday — the Browns-Bills game was moved to Detroit — the MAC waited until Friday to push back a game slated for Saturday, then, on Saturday, postponed it indefinitely.

So here’s the deal: If Ohio (8-3, 6-1) beats BG (6-5, 5-2), it’s academic (the Bobcats win the MAC East). If not and Buffalo (5-5, 4-2) beats Kent State at home on Saturday, woo boy.

Cue the dramarama.

In the latter scenario, Bowling Green and Ohio would finish the regular season with 6-2 league records, Buffalo would be 5-2, and the division will go to ... Buffalo.

Huh?

Yep, according to the MAC, “if necessary, the conference will utilize its uneven number of games tiebreaker policy. The policy was created for situations when multiple teams (a) have the same number of losses but different win totals, (b) have a total games played differential of no more than one game, and (c) have played each other at least one time.”

To wit ...

■ Tiebreaker No. 1: Head-to-head record among the tied teams.

All three teams would be 1-1 — including BG, which would have lost to Buffalo but beaten Ohio — so that’s a wash.

■ Tiebreaker No. 2: Record against the next-best teams in the division.

All three teams beat the fourth-place team in the East (Miami), so we have to go to their results against the fifth-place team (Kent State). BG and Ohio lost to the Flashes and Buffalo would have beaten them. So, voila, the Bulls win a tie that doesn’t even exist.

Case closed!

Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so glib.

I empathize with the folks in Buffalo and, to an extent, the good people in the MAC office.

In the grand scheme, an Akron-Buffalo game isn’t that important, and there’s no playbook for navigating the epic storm that just walloped western New York.

While the UB campus got only about a foot of snow, other parts of the area received more than six feet, presenting a million logistical challenges — including travel bans — to playing the game at either Buffalo or Akron. I appreciate that.

But, worst case, the MAC should have moved the game to Monday in Buffalo.

Yes, that would have meant Buffalo and Akron having just five days before their final games on Saturday, but that’s no less crazy than the five-night turnarounds that weeknight MACtion can require.

What gives?

“Monday would not have been permissible under our scheduling parameters,” MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher told me. “It would have put both teams on five days [rest], and our parameters say you’re allowed to have one five-day window per season, but the other team you play also has to be on five days or a short week.”

My counter: If the league can make an enormous exception and turn to a fly-by-night tiebreaker policy that the athletic directors approved last year only because of the pandemic — Steinbrecher said he was unaware of such a policy existing previously — it can make a small exception to its scheduling rules.

Really, when it comes to all the issues the MAC is creating, I’m not even sure where to begin.

But, from a BG perspective, here would be my three biggest questions:

■ 1. What if the cleat was on the other foot and Buffalo needed to play the Akron game to have a chance at the MAC East title?

Is it fair to assume UB would have raised holy heck and demanded the game be contested?

“No, I don’t think that’s fair to say,” Steinbrecher said. “I don’t think that’s fair. ... I won’t deal with a hypothetical, but we examined a lot of alternatives, and I get the angst. I fully understand that.”

■ 2. What would have happened in the Akron-UB game?

Sure, the Bulls probably would’ve handled the Zips (1-9, 0-6), but that’s no guarantee (four of Akron’s six league losses are by a touchdown or less). And, besides, the final score isn’t the only result that counts.

Who’s to say how Buffalo would have made it out of another physical league battle? At a time of year when everybody is beaten down, a little extra rest could make all the difference in its finale against Kent.

■ 3. Is the MAC now rooting for Bowling Green to lose?

I don’t ask this to question anyone’s integrity, and when I suggested the league must prefer an open-and-shut division winner, Steinbrecher replied, “I don’t accept your characterization.”

Maybe so, and, again, to be very clear, the fix is not in. Don’t be ridiculous.

But, if perception matters at all, the MAC is in a bad spot.

Be real: No league wants a scenario in which it crowns a team with the third-best record in its division because that school — checks notes again — beat the second-worst team in its division.

Any way you cut it, this is not how a serious conference decides its championship race.

Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.