It’s Prime Time ESPN For Western Football Tonight

We're about to find out whether the Western Michigan Broncos football team is ready for prime time on the Mothership. Wednesday night's game is on the main ESPN channel at 8pm live from Waldo Stadium.

It's still hard to judge how good the Broncos are, as last week's opener against Akron was against a team that was winless last season and may be again this season. But the fact the Broncos put 58 points on Akron is a good sign, just the same.

Toledo will be a good test because the teams had similar records last season and similar good starts last week, with the Rockets beating Bowling Green easily 38-3. Traditionally Toledo has given the Broncos fits. They lead the all time series 44-30 and have won three in a row against WMU. Add to that, Toledo was the pre-season pick of the MAC coaches to win the MAC West (Western was picked to be the runner-up).

It wouldn't be surprising for this game to be an offensive shootout, which would make ESPN just that much happier. This is TV programming at a time, when there's really nothing else on, and there's a reason it's billed as MAC-tion. (And that doesn't hurt with recruiting, either)

New Bronco quarterback Kaleb Eleby threw for 262 yards last week. His Toledo counterpart, Eli Peters, threw four touchdown passes. The difference will have to be the Bronco defense, which might be a little better. In this short season, every game becomes that much more critical, so that Bronco D will need to come out big. If it does, Broncos win.