Return of the MAC: Guess Who--That's Right, The BANG Man is Back

Let it bang for me (bang)

- Trippie Redd, musician

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The day is February 27, 2023, and you’ve just received an email notification from a rather nefarious and oddly named Substack called ‘VolumePigs’. The topic: Ohio Bobcat RB Sieh Bangura, otherwise affectionately known as the ‘Bang Man’. The article reads:

“There are some players in college football that are just straight up fucking cool. I’d put the Bang Man squarely in that category as he broke out in 2022 to the tune of 1304 yards from scrimmage and 15 total TDs on 249 touches.

As with all MAC players, the true story of their CFF value lies within their MAC play, and this is where Bangura’s numbers pop off the page. In 8 games of MAC play (7 regular season and the MAC championship) Bangura averaged just over 22 touches a game and scored a total of 13 TDs. Simply put, he was a monster in MAC play.

Being the CFB degenerate that I am, I always keep a close eye on the MAC for potential CFF superstars. Some people are turned off by the small school feel and low quality of play, others like myself embrace it. I like that there’s a feeling of desperation in the air of MAC stadiums; once the cold hits, everyone wants to get out of there ASAP.

Indeed, the MAC is probably the lowest level of play amongst Division 1 FBS leagues, and every offseason there is a mass exodus of high-end MAC players transferring to a P4, or a better G5 league; which makes cases like Bangura increasingly unique.

I still remember the first game that I started Bangura in my fantasy leagues—October 8th vs. Akron. Good god almighty, Bangura rinsed the Zips that day as he scored four total TDs, and dashed for 90 yards on the ground.

There’s a little more to the story though. It was a pivotal week for me in many of my leagues; make or break some would say, and I needed a big performance from Bangura. In the first quarter of the game vs. Akron—before he had scored any TDs—he went down holding his ankle.

The idiot commentators didn’t even mention it (the product on the field is not the only thing that’s poor with the MAC). He was taken off the field and was not seen again for the rest of the quarter. What ensued… well, immense frustration from Mr. VolumePigs.

What was going to be a wonderful day of college football was spoiled right at the beginning of the afternoon. I turned the game off and closed the Fantrax app, figuring that if the day was lost, I might as well do something else.

Later that afternoon I was in the middle of a Harry Potter movie when curiosity got the best of me. I figured, why not check the scores?

This son-of-a-gun returned to the game and absolutely torched it. I turned off that Harry Potter BS and got back into the CFB groove for the remainder of the afternoon. I might have even ordered a celebratory pizza too, I’m not sure.

Anyway, I became a Bangura fan for life that day and decided I’d be watching a lot of Bobcat football going forward.”

It wasn’t a lie when I said that I would be a fan of Mr. Bangura for life (read: the rest of his collegiate football career). I, as I imagine many others, never stopped tracking Bangura’s career despite a lackluster season in 2023 and the subsequent disastrous transfer to Minnesota.

With the Gophers, Bangura became intimately familiar with the hard steel of Minnesota’s bench. Freshman sensation Darius Taylor hit the ground running almost immediately in 2023, so it came as no surprise (to perhaps everyone except the Bang Man himself) that he retained the role of starting running back in 2024.

And, the unfortunate (but also great) thing about Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck is that his backfield hierarchy resembles that of a corrupt dictatorship where the fattest pig gets fed more than he can handle, and everyone else gets absolutely shit on.

Bangura, being one of the aforementioned proverbial defecation receivers, finished the year with… **DRUM ROLL** …four carries, 12 yards, and a mouthwatering zero scores. Que the Troy gif:

MAC Commissioner reaches out to Bang Man moments after his fourth and final carry of 2024.

But look, we’ve all made mistakes in life. Some of us drafted Gavin Sawchuk in the third round of a 2024 CFF draft, others transferred out of a great situation into an unquestionably crap one, jeopardizing their future career in the process.

However, one of the nice things about youth is that your mistakes are often forgiven. Things just have a habit of working themselves out in your favour, even if you don’t deserve it.

Bangura was given a do-over in the 2025 offseason, returning to Ohio, who welcomed him back with open arms like a lover who’s been cheated on so many times that they don’t even blink anymore. “I don’t care about them other girls, just be good to me”, she says.

The best kind of gal, am I right, fellas? She doesn’t ask too many questions. She understands her role on the totem pole, and she knows she’ll never be ‘the one,’ nor does she expect any commitment to her.

But she’s always there when you need her—one phone call away after a proverbial poopoo to the face via a four-carry season in the big leagues; undoubtedly causing irreparable harm to one’s ego and/or NFL draft stock.

There is one catch, though, and that is that former Ohio head coach Tim Albin, who had been with the program since 2005, is no longer a Bobcat man. He took the job at Charlotte. The new head coach was hired internally: Brian Smith, who served as co-OC and assistant head coach in 2024. The other co-OC, Scott Isphording, remains in his position.

Smith was the RBs coach when Bangura ran for 1000 yards, and Isphording was the co-OC and QBs coach at the time. That feels like good news for the Bang Man truthers out there.

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Coaching & System

RB1 PPG AVERAGE — HC: 14.87 — OC: 15.3¹ (half ppr)

New head coach Brian Smith has one year of play calling experience to draw on, and that was in 2024. His backfield was a good one, at least early on as Anthony Tyus started the year red hot. Tyus finished the 2024 campaign averaging around 14.87 PPG.

Coach Isphording was a play caller as co-OC when Bangura torched the MAC for 1000 yards in 2022. He took over in that role starting in 2021; and you can see that lovely 19.49 PPG average in the 2022 entry under his name in Table 1.

Table 1.

In the four years where Coach Ispho has been in the role of OC, the Bobcats offence averaged (in chronological order): 58/42, 51/49, 56/44, and 62/38 run to pass splits. The last year (2024) being the most run-heavy, and also the only season in that sample where new head coach Brian Smith was one of the OCs.

The Bobcat offence consistently averages over 27 seconds per play, so suffice it to say the Cats aren’t going to break any records for plays run per game under this staff, but that’s OK.

When you look at the current Bobcat depth chart, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve been blended into a time machine and brought back to the year 2022. Bangura’s name looms large at the top, and behind him is his trusted sidekick Nolan McCormick, who served as the RB2 in 2022. McCormick even had himself a 17 carry game one time vs. those nerds at Fordham when Bangura was out with injury.

I like the mojo that’s flowing here. Call it nostalgia, or the delirious ramblings of a man who’s written an unreasonable amount of CFF content, but the Bang Man is going to be one of my favourites once again this offseason.

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Sieh Bangura (6’0, 210)

2024 RUSHING STATS: 4 - 12 - 0 (😐)

Bangura actually played high level high school ball at DeMatha Catholic, which is a productive program in Maryland. Anyone recognize the name Cameron Wake? Remarkably, Bangura was only rated as the 1280th best player in his class of 2021, and was given a three star rating.

He held offers primarily from other MAC programs and FCS schools, but did hold an offer from the in-state Maryland Terrapins and garnered interest from Penn State (no offer).

While I spent a lot of time on the 2022 season above, the 2023 season, while disappointing, was not terrible. In particular, he came on strong towards the end of the year. He finished the '23 campaign with 178 carries, 811 yards, and seven TDs rushing. He added another score via the air on 18 receptions (24 targets) and 159 yards.

Bangura’s receiving ability is an important component of his game. He is a good receiver (and I would know; I have the lumps, aka minutes of Bobcat football watched, to prove it). He is a superior talent to the other athletes in the MAC.

Which raises the question: what exactly went wrong in 2023? The answer, I think, is simple. O’Shaan Allison, who was supposed to be the starter in 2022 but missed the year with a blown ACL, ate into the carry share in 2023. That scoundrel now resides with the Austin Peay Governors (and good riddance to him).

Call me a fool, but I’m not as worried about that happening again in 2025. McCormick (current RB2) has already demonstrated a willingness to play the role of cuckold (2022) while Bangura busts all over the unsuspecting yet ever-vibrant Mid-American Conference (in all her glory).

The major problem that I see is that QB Parker Navarro is going to steal a lot of rushing scores from the Bang Man. Hopefully, there’s enough to go around. If you manage to acquire both Navarro and Bangura you’ll probably monopolize all of the rushing production out of Ohio for 2025.

Bangura rounds out a surprisingly strong class of MAC RBs this year and I’d put him up against even the likes of UB’s Al Jay Henderson and NIU’s Telly Johnson from strictly a talent standpoint. The nice thing about Bang Man is that he will likely be significantly cheaper than either of those two names in CFF drafts. ◾

For those who are interested in the archives (and forgive me, this was from the first month of my writing):

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1. Sample 2018-2024, excluding 2020.