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Miami football picked to finish fifth in MAC East

RedHawks senior says his team is greatly unknown by outsiders.

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By Pete Conrad, Staff Writer Updated 8:04 AM Monday, August 2, 2010

DETROIT — Miami University’s football team was picked to finish fifth in the Mid-American Conference East Division in this year’s preseason poll, the league office announced Friday, July 30, during the MAC Football Preview at Ford Field.

The RedHawks, who have won just three games over the previous two seasons, received 53 total points in the voting from 20 MAC media members. That is not a high number.

Three hours after the vote was announced in a MAC press release, the results remained unknown to Miami coach Michael Haywood even though he was surrounded by fellow MAC head coaches, MAC players, MAC officials and tables on which copies of the press release were piled. He didn’t know the results because he hadn’t bothered to look.

“I haven’t looked at one preseason poll except for the Top 25,” Haywood said, noting that he makes that exception “because I have to vote on it.”

The RedHawks have won just one of their last 17 games, but senior strong safety and team captain Jordan Gafford said Miami should be considered a great unknown this fall.

“There are so many people who don’t know what happens in a program from one year to another,” Gafford said. “On paper, we have a lot of letter-winners, but we have a lot of letter-winners who will be battling just to get on the bus (by making the travel squad) for road games.”

Temple is the favorite to win the MAC East title. The Owls, who went 9-4 and shared the title with Ohio in 2009, have 56 returning letter-winners, including 16 starters.

Temple received 137 total points, including 17 first-place votes, and was followed in the voting by Ohio (116 points, including three first-place votes), Kent State (94 points), Bowling Green (74), Miami, Buffalo (48) and Akron (38).

Temple coach Al Golden, whose team will feature sophomore sensation Bernard Pierce at running back, said the voting “means we’re relevant.”

Although that obviously means something to a program which used to be a college football punch line, Golden said he didn’t want his players to get caught up in the hype.

“If we listened to what everybody on the outside said, we never would have gotten the program turned around,” Golden said. “So we shouldn’t be listening to it now just because it’s favorable.”

Northern Illinois got the nod in the West Division with 115 total points, including 15 first-place votes, followed by defending champion Central Michigan (83 points, three first-place votes), Western Michigan (77 points, two first-place votes), Toledo (75 points), Ball State (50) and Eastern Michigan (20).

Temple is the favorite to win the MAC championship game. The Owls received 11 of the 16 votes cast, followed by Northern Illinois (five) and Ohio (one).

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.