The Mid-American Conference released its annual football preseason coaches poll Monday and selected the Bowling Green Falcons and the Toledo Rockets to win the East and West Divisions, respectively.

The poll, voted on by all 12 full member MAC coaches, was announced at the league’s annual Football Media Day at Ford Field in Detroit.

In the East Division, Bowling Green was selected as the frontrunner with 83 points and a near-unanimous 11 first-place votes. The Falcons return 48 letter-winners and 16 starters from last season’s 10-4 team that took home a MAC Championship for the first time since 1992 and punched its ticket to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.

Following the Falcons are Akron (2), Ohio (3), Buffalo (4), Kent State (5), Miami (6), and UMass (7).

Despite the loss of former Northern Illinois star and Heisman Trophy finalist Jordan Lynch, the Huskies were picked to win the West Division with 68 points and nine first place votes. Much like Bowling, Northern Illinois welcomes back 16 starters from last season, including 47 letter-winners. Last season the Huskies went 12-2 and an undefeated 8-0 in the conference en route to the program’s fourth consecutive West Division title.

Ranked behind the Huskies are Toledo (2) with 61 points, Ball State (3) with 47 points, Central Michigan (4) with 38 points, Western Michigan (5) with 23 points and Eastern Michigan (6) with 15 points.

The media poll usually draws criticism from the head football coaches in the MAC, but this season, the coaches didn’t have much to complain about, as the coaches poll perfectly mirrors the media poll verbatim.

Normally the coaches poll released in August drastically differs from the media poll released in July, but this year the two polls are virtually identical.

The only difference between the coaches poll and media poll is the rankings of the top two teams in the MAC West Division. The media poll places Toledo at the top of the heap, while the coaches poll tabs Bowling Green as the team to beat in the Division.

The MAC is a conference on the rise and one to keep an eye on when the college football season kicks off this weekend. Six different teams have competed for the conference championship over the last five years, which makes it difficult to predict the winner of the conference. Ten different programs over the last three years have been invited to play in bowl games.

Contact Taylor Rosen at [email protected]. Contact Richie Mulhall at [email protected].