We have already gone around the SEC and taken a look at the national games of interest, which leaves us with just one game remaining . . . namely, the national game of disinterest.

The national game of disinterest is the one game each week that I refuse to pick because I cannot for the life of me find any compelling reason to root one way or the other, much less to hazard a guess as to the eventual winner. This week’s national game of disinterest is:

Yes, I know . . . Temple is 9-2 overall and 7-0 in Mid-American Conference play, whereas Ohio (Ohio) sports an 8-3 record with a 6-1 ledger in MAC action, so this game has real implications for the league championship.

The problem is that the league in question is the Mid-American Conference.

The MAC is a Midwestern hodgepodge of Directional Michigans and glorified Buckeye State high school squads whose chief function is to serve as schedule fodder for the big boys in their neck of the woods. At best, the MAC is the Big Ten’s Conference USA; the MAC might as well be renamed the Snow Belt.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s nice work if you can get it. Take Tuesday night, for instance. I was working on the computer and I had the Ball State-Western Michigan game on in the background, but, because I was sick, I decided to turn in early. Even though the Cardinals and the . . . um . . . Broncos? Eagles? Chippewas? ah, what difference does it make, anyway? . . . were playing a competitive game, I had no trouble turning it off and going to bed without knowing which team won.

It’s an entertaining enough spectacle if you have nothing else to do, I suppose, but it’s more a football-like substance than actual football. Accordingly, I don’t care what sort of implications Friday’s showdown carries for the league championship. This is, after all, the Methadone Addiction Conference, providing the faux football to hardcore fans who need something to ease the transition into the offseason.

Go ‘Dawgs!