Filling out my Mid-American Conference preseason ballot wasn’t easy.

I thought about it for awhile, switching back and forth on who I thought would represent the MAC West in the conference championship game. In the end, I decided on Northern Illinois, the team that had won the division in 2010 and 2011 and came away with a MAC championship last season.

It wasn’t easy. To me, Toledo (who was picked first by the league’s media) and Western Michigan would have been solid picks. Even Ball State and Eastern Michigan looked like they would have improved teams.