Every time a bell rings, an angel instructs a Big Ten football team to pad its nonconference schedule with a squad from the MAC. Or at least it seems that way: Of the 48 nonconference games waged by Big Ten teams this year, 13 are against the league's proverbial little brother.

The MAC is known as a conference for developing coaches - see alums Nick Saban (Toledo), Urban Meyer (Bowling Green) and Brady Hoke (Ball State). And last year, Ball State beat Indiana while other MAC teams took Penn State, Ohio State, Illinois and Minnesota to the wire.

But it is not to be confused with the SEC. And clearly the Big Ten hasn't done that. Only Michigan and Northwestern dared schedule an SEC team. (The Wolverines' season opener vs. Alabama is also the league's best nonconference game.) And the MAC won't be confused with the Big 12 - only Iowa, with its annual game against Iowa State, soldiered into that speedy league.