MAC decides to fight back, but it was always throwing stones at Goliath

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  Dan WetzelSep 8, 2026, 08:30 PM ET

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  Dan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.

If nothing else, the Mid-American Conference decided to stand up for itself no matter college football's established pecking order.

Yes, Michigan is Michigan, the Big Ten is the Big Ten, and the MAC (and by proxy Western Michigan) is what it is.

This is college football. Money is power, and power is money. One side has a lot more than the other, which is why these early-season games are often about showing up, shutting up and collecting your check ($1.5 million in this case) for the honor of getting invited.

If an extra second is added to the game clock, well, deal with it. Plenty of people thought Western Michigan got cheated out of a victory over Michigan on Saturday, but even if that is so, it wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.

To recap, WMU appeared to win the game 12-7 after a Wolverine pass sailed out of the end zone as the clock on NBC read 0:00. Big Ten review officials, however, citing a clock in their system that appeared synced to the actual stadium clock, gave the Wolverines one more second for one more Hail Mary. Michigan converted the mulligan and won 13-12.

On Tuesday, after three days of accepting the Big Ten's explanations, the MAC swung back, saying that the game is still supposed to be the game and that the protocols (more on that later) are supposed to be the protocols.

Western Michigan, it claims, actually won.

"After further study and investigation, it is now evident that replay protocol was not properly followed in determining whether time remained on the game clock," MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said in a statement.

And this time the league wasn't asking for an apology or a clarification. It filed a formal appeal with the NCAA FBS Oversight Committee and the College Football Playoff asking that the Broncos be recognized as the winner.

Who is right here is a matter of perspective -- both sides can make a case.

The Big Ten appears to be precisely correct because dozens of internet stopwatches have shown that the first Hail Mary took slightly less than the nine seconds that remained in the game at the start of the play. As such, there was time for one more snap.

The MAC, apparently, isn't conceding that. It just says the review should use the clock on the NBC broadcast (even if it was wrong), not the "official" clock of the Big Ten that was used by replay officials (even if it was correct).

"The established replay protocol requires that the game clock displayed on the program feed be used in determining whether time remained," Steinbrecher wrote in a letter to the oversight committee. "Instead, the Big Ten Conference replay crew relied upon the clock feed embedded within its replay system.

"This was not a judgment regarding the proper amount of time to place on the clock," Steinbrecher added. "It was an error in the application of the established replay protocol governing this specific end-of-game timing situation. Had the protocol been properly followed and the program-feed clock been used, no additional play would have been awarded."

This is a 180 from when Steinbrecher and WMU officials initially accepted the decision, including the commissioner telling ESPN's Jake Trotter that he had "confidence in the integrity of the process and the integrity of the people involved."

Now, they are pounding the table and taking on Goliath in a sport where the playing field is never truly level.

"Western Michigan should not be disadvantaged because the prescribed replay protocol was not followed," Steinbrecher wrote.

The NCAA rulebook can be contradictory.

A section on replays (Rule 12-6-1[c]) states that "all reviews shall be based upon video evidence provided by and coming directly from the televised production of the game or from other video means available to the replay official that is also available to the television producer."

This makes sense because if millions are seeing one thing, telling them it's another is exactly how you get into this mess. It doesn't appear NBC had access to the Big Ten's video.

Yet a section on how time is kept (Rule 3-4[a]) gives full control to game officials: "Playing time shall be kept with a game clock that may be either a stopwatch operated by the line judge, back judge, field judge or side judge, or a game clock operated by an assistant under the direction of the appropriate judge."

This also makes sense because why should a television broadcaster be the determining factor?

The chances of the MAC being successful and the game result being reversed, however? Virtually zero. The NCAA said it has no mechanism to reverse a result. The Big Ten is so unconcerned it essentially declined to comment on the MAC's petition for a reversal.

The benefits to the MAC's self-esteem for at least trying, though? Probably incalculable.

If nothing else, the league is trying to fight as hard as those Western Michigan players did Saturday in the Big House.