DETROIT (AP) -- By the time he had finished his sophomore season, Central Michigan quarterback Dan LeFevour already had won two Mid-American Conference championships.
No one seems to doubt his ability to make it three in a row.
The Chippewas were the overwhelming favorite to win both the MAC's West Division and the conference championship game in a media poll released Tuesday at the league's media day at Ford Field.
Central Michigan received 29 of 36 first-place votes in the West and was the selection of 24 of 36 voters to win the Dec. 5 title game at Ford Field.
"We know that teams are going to be coming after us," said LeFevour, the conference's Offensive Player of the Year in 2007. "That was true last year, and it is especially true now that we've won two straight."
Last season, LeFevour became just the second player in Football Bowl Subdivision history to throw for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards in the same season, joining Vince Young, who did it for Texas in 2005.
"Obviously, everything we do offensively centers around Dan," said Chippewas coach Butch Jones. "But we're not just an offense -- we're trying to build an entire program here. Getting the defense we want is going to take time, but we're making progress."
Ball State finished a distant second in both rankings, getting five votes in each. That doesn't surprise Cardinals coach Brady Hoke, given Central Michigan's recent success.
"They've done what every person sitting in this room wants to do -- they've won the title," Hoke said. "That's a tremendous program, because this is a tough conference."
Western Michigan got the remaining two votes in the West.
"We have enough talent to win, but we had enough to contend last year, and we didn't finish games," Broncos coach Bill Cubit said. "That comes down to experience and leadership. Every team in this conference is going to face adversity, and the winners are going to be the ones that handle it."
In the East, Bowling Green was chosen as the favorite, garnering 17 first-place votes.
"It's an honor to be chosen first, especially since we expect to be able to compete for a championship this year," said Bowling Green coach Gregg Brandon. "But there are a lot of teams in this division who feel that way. It's a very deep division."
Every team in the seven-team division was chosen first by at least two media members, with Miami of Ohio getting seven, Buffalo and Ohio picking up three each and Akron, Kent State and Temple being selected twice.
Miami coach Shane Montgomery thinks the divisional parity is caused by the high levels of experience on all seven rosters. Every team brings back at least 14 of its 22 starters.
"It goes in cycles -- we all seemed to be playing a bunch of young guys two years ago, and now they have all turned into experienced players," Montgomery said. "Not only is every program in the East bringing a lot of guys back, they have all gotten better and better over the last couple years.
"There's now a very fine line between first and last in here."
Buffalo coach Turner Gill, a former star quarterback and assistant coach at Nebraska, said he doesn't know of another conference in the country with as much depth as the MAC.
"It is unheard of to see this kind of parity, especially in a 13-team conference," he said. "There are programs that have accomplished great things -- Central, obviously, and Bowling Green and Miami in the East, but you have to be hitting on all cylinders every week if you want to stay competitive here."
Bowling Green finished third with four championship-game picks, while Buffalo, Miami and Western Michigan got one each, but they weren't the only schools with aspirations of making it back to Ford Field in a little over four months.
"We feel like we can win the MAC championship, and so does everyone else in this league," said Akron coach J.D. Brookhart. "It's going to go back and forth all year, and we'll see who ends up at the top."
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