Non-conference opportunities

America is just eight days away from the start of college football.

Central Michigan has 10 days until it plays at Wildcat Stadium against Arizona, the first of four non-conference games. Besides Alcorn State, the other three teams — Arizona, Michigan State and Boston College — all come from conferences that automatically send its champion to a Bowl Championship Series bowl game.

This is a prime opportunity for CMU. The Chippewas came close to upsetting similar teams in the past. In 2006, Boston College snuck out of Kelly/Shorts Stadium with a seven-point win. Purdue barely beat CMU 51-48 in 2007’s Motor City Bowl and won 32-25 in an early 2008 non-conference game. The combined deficit for the games was just 10 points.

The Chippewas lost by large deficits to other big programs. Georgia, the No. 1 team in the nation at one point last season, beat CMU 56-17. In 2007, Kansas, which peaked at No. 2 in the nation, beat CMU 52-7, and Clemson put up 70 points to CMU’s 14.

But this year could be different. All three teams are either marquee programs or in the process of changing to one, a much different case than Indiana, which CMU beat 37-34 last year.

Indiana is a Big Ten team, but that hardly makes the Hoosiers a big-time opponent. IU has gone 27-56 (11-45 Big Ten) since 2002 with just one winning season (2007). Its 2007 bowl game loss to Oklahoma State marked the first time IU made a bowl game since 1993. Its last Rose Bowl bid, traditionally given to the Big Ten Champion, was gained in 1968.

The last time the Hoosiers went .500 in the conference was in 2001, when now-NFL WR Antwaan Randle El led the team at quarterback. When you add the fact IU followed its impressive 2007 season with a 3-9 2008 season that saw it also lose to Ball State 42-20, suddenly CMU’s three-point win does not seem as impressive.

Not-so Indiana

Boston College, despite being picked to finish last in the Atlantic Coast Conference by the media this year, has won the Atlantic Division in the ACC the last two years before losing in the Championship game.

MSU, a perennial choke artist of a team down the stretch, may have finally found a coach competent enough to shove them into the upper echelon of the Big Ten.

And Arizona, under Mike Stoops — brother of Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops — made it back to a bowl game last year and had a defense that ranked fifth in the PAC 10 in total defense.

However, all three teams are beatable. Arizona and MSU have intense quarterback competitions going on, and BC has a former minor league pitcher coming back to school to start at the quarterback position. All three teams are in transition at the most important position on the field.

If CMU can manage to win one of the three games, the national respect it has gained in the past few years will significantly increase. And if it can somehow win two of those games, a Top 25 ranking would be in reach.

Last year, Ball State reached as high as No. 12 in the nation. That is a slap in the face to the Chippewas.

Clearly the Mid-American Conference’s overall best team since 2006, CMU will have a chance to prove that.

The 2009 season is a statement year.