DETROIT -- So what's new? Not much. Same old, same old.

And so it goes with the Mid-American Conference preseason football poll of the league's media that selected the Marshall Thundering Herd as the odds-on favorites.

Marshall got the nod from 43 of 47 voters to win their fifth league championship since rejoining the MAC in 1997.

Marshall had 324 points to place first in the East Division, well ahead of runner-up choice Miami with 257 points and three first place votes. Central Florida, a newcomer to the MAC this season, was third with 248 points and had the other first place vote.

''Our goals this year are the same as they are every season,'' Marshall coach Bob Pruett said. ''We want to be ranked in the top 15, and we want to win a bowl game. Last year, we (beat) East Carolina in the GMAC Bowl, but we lost the MAC title game and we were not in the top 15, so that's a disappointment.''

Kent State was fourth with 174 points followed by Akron with 136, Ohio 111, and Buffalo 66.

The West Division was a tight voting race.

Bowling Green had 25 first place votes and 283 points as the predicted West winner. Defending MAC champion Toledo was second with 13 first place votes and 266 points.

Western Michigan was third with 205 points, just four points better than Northern Illinois. WMU had three first place votes and NIU four.

Ball State was fifth with two first place votes and 188 points. Central Michigan (118) and Eastern Michigan (55) rounding out the voting.

In the MAC championship game, 41 media members picked Marshall. Miami and Toledo got two votes each while Bowling Green and Central Florida were awarded one apiece.

Much of Marshall's success will rest on the right arm of Byron Leftwich who is one of the top quarterbacks in the country. He is being mentioned as a Heisman Trophy candidate.

''It's great for me and the program that people are talking about me and the Heisman (Trophy),'' said Leftwich, the only quarterback in MAC history to throw for 4,000 yards in a season. ''But this is July, so it doesn't mean anything. It will mean something if they are still talking about me in late November.''

Points were awarded on a 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.

Toledo beat Marshall in the MAC title game last season and went on to win the Motor City Bowl over Cincinnati. The Herd got a bowl bid to the newly formed GMAC Bowl and outlasted East Carolina 64-61 in triple overtime. Jim Walker/The Ironton Tribune