MAC : Ball St. Won't Go to Boise; Maryland Near Lock?

Forget everything you've been told:

[MAC Commissioner Rick Chryst] said the MAC and Ball State have explored all possibilities to make the Boise State-Ball State game work. But he expects Ball State to play in one of the MAC-affiliated bowls, and not in Boise.

That means Maryland is probably headed to Boise. The opponent would be Boise State or Nevada.

“I think we have exhausted in a good way all the possibilities of” Ball State vs. Boise State, Chryst said. “And my sense is strongly that Ball State will be in one of the three MAC games, which means Ball State-Boise State is not likely to happen.”

Wow. Seems like Maryland will almost certainly be headed to the Humanitarian Bowl, if these reports are to be believed. If this happens, I expect the WAC will send Boise State to play TCU at the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego, because of TCU's high ranking. My guess is that Maryland would play Nevada in Boise. That's a huge turn of events.

One thing here: Don't be certain that this'll happen. It's far from conclusive evidence that Maryland is headed to the Humanitarian Bowl. There's a great chance that is just putting pressure on Boise St./Humanitarian Bowl to either promise a trip to Muncie, Ind. in the regular season, or up the payout, or both. This could just be some public pandering, and making the people in Boise just nervous enough to do it.

With that said, I am expecting this to be true, so my guess that if you want to see the Terps play, you'll have to grab a round-trip flight to Boise, ID, to watch Maryland play Nevada. Yay!