Hat tip to Beyond the Bets for catching that offshore site BetOnline has posted point spreads for all 44 games on the opening weekend of the college football season. Earlier this month, 5Dimes had taken the lead in posting lines for a handful of openers.

A few observations:

*Differences of opinion

Photo: USA Today Sports

Oklahoma State has blocked any transfer for quarterback Wes Lunt to anywhere in the Big 12. And the SEC. And the Pac 12, according to CBS Sports.

And Southern Mississippi.

And... Central Michigan?

For those keeping score at home, Oklahoma State has blocked Lunt from transferring to a total of 38 schools. Something about this just does not seem right. Does it?

Follow Crystal Ball Run on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

(Photo Courtesy: USA Today Sports)

After a fun-filled week of #MACtion, which saw us discuss the league’s newest coaches, biggest games, toughest schedules and best players, it is now time for our staff to make their picks on who will ultimately win this league.

(Also, for our staff picks on the American Conference please click here)

There was a time not too long ago when most everyone believed that Maurice Clarett had a prominent future as a star in the National Football League. With that dream now long gone, Clarett is apparently making a run at being the best in another sport: Rugby.

That certainly wasn’t a headline we expected to see this morning, but according to the Columbus Dispatch, Clarett has taken up the new sport and begun training with a Columbus, Ohio affiliate of Tiger Rugby. Tiger is the developmental program which will help select the first ever U.S. Olympic team, when rugby officially becomes a sanctioned Olympic sport in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games.  

And apparently, Clarett wants to be part of that team.

(Photo Courtesy: USA Today Sports)

It’s only 10:30 a.m., but we’re already a bit late to the game in the latest chapter of “Where in the World is Johnny Football.” After Manziel has spent his off-season traversing the globe, with pit-stops along the way at a casino (18+ of course!), numerous NBA and NFL games, and a soon-to-be bromantic getaway with A.J. McCarron, Manziel decided to turn his attention to baseball.

That’s because on Thursday night Manziel hit the diamond to take some batting practice and throw out the first pitch of the Padres game against the Nationals.

(Photo Courtesy: USA Today Sports Images)

In every way, shape and form, #MACtion (as both a noun and a verb) is alive and well. Just looking over rosters this spring, it’s simply incredible how much talent returns to this conference in 2013. In specific these offenses (not surprisingly) are stacked; the MAC returns seven wideouts who had at least 800 yards last year, and a staggering seven running backs who rushed for 1,000 yards last season.

Yes, you read that correctly: There are seven RETURNING running backs who rushed for over 1,000 yards last year.

That number is incredible for two reasons:

1. There were only 61 backs who rushed for over 1,000 yards last year in ALL of college football.

2. That number 61 includes many who have since taken their talents to the NFL.  

Again, it’s safe to say that #MACtion is alive. It is also definitely well.

That also makes the task of putting together a preseason All-Conference team in this league quite challenging. In some conferences its tough finding qualified candidates to fill all 24 roster slots; in the MAC, we had no choice but to leave a number of qualified candidates off.

Either way, here’s our best attempt to pick the 2013 All-MAC First Team, and to do it May.

Wish us luck and as always, you’re more than welcome to share your opinions in the comments section below.

#MACtion is synonymous with shootouts in the college football world, and few teams in the country’s wildest conference have lived up to the offensive hype as consistently over the years as the Toledo Rockets.

Stopping opponents, on the other hand, tends to present more of a challenge for the MACsters, Toledo included.

At the end of the 2011 season, newly made 32-year-old head coach Matt Campbell looked within the Rockets’ own conference for a defensive architect who was accustomed to combating all those prolific attacks. The name he came up with was Tom Matukewicz, linebackers coach at Northern Illinois and longtime disciple of former Huskies coach Jerry Kill.

Photo: USA Today Sports

Rutgers will host long time regional rival and new division rival Penn State in the first Big Ten Conference game in program history on September 13, 2014. The home date against Penn State will be the first of a healthy dose of contests against some of college football's legendary programs in 2014 as the Big Ten is handing Rutgers quite the initiation next year. The Big Ten unveiled the entire 2014 Big Ten football schedule on Thursday afternoon, laying it all out for us to digest.

Rutgers was already prepared to go up against Michigan and Ohio State, in addition to Penn State, Michigan State, Indiana and Maryland under the newly restructured divisions in the Big Ten effective in 2014. But the Big Ten is also throwing Nebraska and Wisconsin at Rutgers in year one in the Big Ten. That is quite the stacked schedule for the Scarlet Knights to run through in their first year in the conference.

Could more neutral site games be in future of MAC/Big Ten relationship?
(photo courtesy: USA Today Sports/Anthony Wells)

We've talked a lot about the term "MACtion" this week and rightfully so, you know... since we're previewing the conference and all, but there's another term, one that the MAC would like us to forget and that's MACrifice. It's a term that refers to it's football teams and their symbiotic relationship to the big boys of the Midwest - the Big Ten. However, the future between these linked conferences could be changing in a big way.

These two conferences have been linked together for about as long as they've both existed and it only makes sense with the footprints of the two conferences pretty much overlapping throughout their histories. It helps in travel costs, bringing fans along and allowing Big Ten fans to be at least minimally aware of said opponent. 

However, the relationship is often one of the smaller MAC school having to trek it to the "big brothers" of the Big Ten and thusly taking a beating. Hence why they call it MACrifice.

The Big Ten's 301-49-4 all-time record against the MAC pretty much sums up why those in Big Ten country have coined that term.