Friday's Mid-American Conference Championship Game is about windows.
If that sounds strange, strange fits here. Tonight, No. 17 Kent State plays No. 21 Northern Illinois.
Those are national BCS rankings, by the way. Per automatic qualification rules, the winner ends up in a BCS bowl if it finishes in the top 16. Detroit's Ford Field, home of the Super Bowl six years back, will Football Bizarro World Friday.
Expect a crowd of 25,000 for a game that's about crazy dreams and party crashing, career arcs, well-kept secrets named Archer, BCS bowl reps (possibly trying to hide their true feelings) observing two very talented but very different teams and a Kent State crowd that's likely to consist mostly of people who weren't even alive in 1972, the last time the Golden Flashes won a MAC title and went to a bowl game.
Windows. This is about one opening for both teams -- circumstances, computer polls and a bunch of outside forces colliding to create the kind of moment that's never existed before and isn't likely to ever exist again.
On a national scale -- and even on a regional one, too -- Kent State has spent more time in college football's bottom five in the last 25 years than it's spent within even shouting distance of the top 25.
For the MAC and non-BCS/"Group of Five" teams everywhere, tonight could be a seminal moment. It could be a Seminole moment, too. The winner of this game has a legitimate chance of earning a BCS bowl game berth, moving on to play Florida State in the Orange Bowl or Florida in the Sugar Bowl.
Kent State is 1-0 against Florida in athletic competition this year, by the way, having eliminated the top overall seed in the College World Series in June.
Windows.
Next year, Kent State's non-conference games are at LSU and Penn State, a significant step up from this year's at Kentucky and Rutgers. Winning at LSU will be as tough as replicating the Flashes' 2012 turnover ratio of plus 20, tied for the best in the nation.
This year's MAC schedule rotation allowed Kent State to avoid Northern Illinois and Toledo in cross-division games, too. By the time MAC preseason darling Ohio University came to Kent last weekend, the Bobcats had lost 14 starters to season-ending injury.
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Windows. Kent State has been 5-7 in each of the last three seasons, and that was the program's best three-season run since the late 1980s. This team lost by 33 points to Kentucky (final record: Two wins, 10 losses, one fired head coach) on Sept. 8 and hasn't lost since.
A window opened, someone or something shot Dri Archer out of a cannon, confidence became contagious and further windows opened. Kent State coach Darrell Hazell is part genius, part miracle worker.
Northern Illinois lost its season opener in the fourth quarter to an Iowa team that turned out to be pretty bad. Driven by dual-threat quarterback Jordan Lynch, Northern Illinois has been close to perfect since, blowing past most opponents in the second halves of games.
First Ohio, then Toledo, then Kent State cracked the top 25 as part of the MAC's public resurgence this fall. But once the conference season started, few who really watch the MAC -- and it makes for great mid-week viewing in any year -- could argue with the Huskies being the class of the league again.
They won this MAC title game last year, rallying past Ohio to raise the trophy in Dave Doeren's first year as head coach. This is Hazell's second year as Kent State's coach, and life in the MAC means the kind of winning both have done will lead to calls from programs with deeper pockets.
It's unlikely a BCS program will actually drive an armored truck with bags of money into Ford Field to whisk Doeren and/or Hazell away after tonight's game, but it also seems unlikely that either won't cash in on this success. It's the nature of the beast, not the nature of either man, but it's entirely possible a MAC team could go to the Orange Bowl with an interim head coach.
Windows. They're everywhere.
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Anomalies make for good stories, and the way MAC programs have to do business makes these possibilities even more unique.
These teams rank 105th and 107th in FBS football in attendance. The biggest crowd at Kent State's Dix Stadium all season came for a high school playoff game on the second weekend of November. Where, exactly, in the northern part of Illinois is Northern Illinois? That's a question most college football fans probably couldn't answer.
Speaking of great questions, just how did Kent State put this type of win streak together? The defense has been susceptible to the big play, but it has made as many huge plays as it has given up. The special teams have been solid -- teams quit kicking to Archer months ago -- and the offense has been efficient.
While just about everybody in college football is running the spread 90 percent of the time, the Flashes have done it the old-fashioned way, with Archer breaking ankles and 250-pound (maybe bigger) power back Trayion Durham breaking wills.
A preseason, three-man quarterback competition was won by senior incumbent Spencer Keith and, well, let's just say only one quarterback in tonight's game has put up numbers that compare with the nation's best quarterbacks.
Keith isn't big, isn't especially fast and doesn't have a very strong arm. He's been a great leader, great in key moments and a steadying force, but he's been inconsistent. And sporadic. He's had forgettable games this season in which he has gone 6-of-15, 9-of-17 and 9-of-20, and he's thrown for fewer than 100 yards in four different games.
He's 11-1. Kent State is 11-1.
Windows. When one is open, jump through. Kent State has kept its open by running Durham and Archer first and having Keith throw through it when necessary.
Kent State has its formula; Northern Illinois has its formula, too. Lynch is a superstar, a first-year starter behind a totally new offensive line who's been darn near unstoppable. Sixteen days ago against Toledo, he became the first FBS player ever to throw for more than 450 yards and run for more than 100 in the same game.
Based on Lynch's speed and skill, the Huskies' big-stage experience and the way Doeren has this team clicking, Northern Illinois should win this game. Based on the way Kent State has won 10 straight and seized this moment, you'd be crazy to pick against them.
Really crazy.
Friday, (at least some of) the nation will watch this #MACtion, this storyline, these teams. Athletic directors, big spenders and rabid football fans will watch for different reasons. By the end, somebody's window might be open like never before.
There's never been a MAC football game quite like this one. Enjoy it; there might never be one like it again.
