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The season is now in full swing as we move through December and mercifully no longer have to watch the brutal disappointment that was the 2009 college football season every week. I took in a couple of games in November to try and get a feel for how my teams were going to look this season and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised in both cases.

On November 15th we headed through the ruins of Old Detroit and took in the Western Michigan/Detroit Mercy game at Callahan Hall. This game holds special significance to the Broncos because their best low post player from last season LeMarcus Lowe was sitting on UDM’s bench as a recent transfer. This is the guy who wanted to be closer to his ailing mother who lives in Flint so he left Kalamazoo for Detroit. Either that or those degenerates gave him a fancy shirt with a tiger on it, some gold chains and a previously owned Ford Taurus. At any rate the Broncos had something to prove after a 10-21 season and a major off season defection, and even in defeat showed enough to leave room for optimism. They never let the game get away from them and held their own physically on the road. A far cry from their performance last season.

Down the road in Ypsilanti Eastern Michigan is in a pivotal year for their program. Charles Ramsey is in year 5 of a very disappointing tenure that has yet to produce a winning season, and with a healthy senior lead team that includes the return of All MAC point guard Carlos Medlock from the injured list it is now or never for C-Ram. I was able to check out EMU once in person already this season when they soundly beat a pretty average Cansisus team from the MAAC in front of a very sparse crowd last week. They then followed it up by being soundly trounced by 51 at Ohio State on Saturday, but all in all I feel like EMU has had a good start to the 09-10 campaign as they sit at 5-3 with a steady diet of cupcakes on deck before heading into MAC play. If they can shake off an embarrassing performance and keep rolling forward they should be decent this year. I would like to be all in on the EMU bandwagon but I have seen this team fall apart to many times under Ramsey and to many promising players fail to develop after good early season performances. I should have a better feel for them after I see them in a tough game against somewhat even competition (I’m giving them a pass in the Ohio State game for now because I think Evan Turner breaking his back really threw them off).

Right now I don’t see either of these programs as championship contenders even in a weak MAC, but there is reason to hope that they might develop into contending programs. We shall see.