If Navy wins its conference, 2016’s bowl schedule could be incomplete for a week

College football’s powers are supposed to answer all of our burning questions on Sunday afternoon. That’s when the Playoff’s selection committee makes public the identities of four teams (OK, Alabama and three other teams) who will get a chance to play for the national title, via the Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl semifinals.

And that’ll still happen. Most other bowls will still be able to announce their bids later Sunday, too.

But what comes afterward could get really messy if Navy beats Temple in the AAC Championship on Saturday (noon ET, ABC), now that higher-ranked mid-major Western Michigan has won the MAC.

“I don’t want to be un-American,” an anonymous bowl official told ESPN’s Brett McMurphy, “but nearly everyone in the bowl industry, quite frankly, is rooting against Navy.”

Why?

Navy’s in the running for the Cotton, along with WMU. But Navy’s regular season-ending game with Army isn’t until the following Saturday.

The matchups for the four non-Playoff New Year’s Six bowls – the Orange, Rose, Sugar, and Cotton – are supposed to come out Sunday. The Cotton has one bid reserved for the committee’s top-ranked champion from a Group of 5 conference, and thus the Cotton’s announcement could be delayed by a week, which would delay some other mid-major bowls as well.

Navy could beat Temple, running its record to 10-2 and claiming the championship of the country’s top league outside the Power 5. If unbeaten Western Michigan wins the MAC, that would leave Navy and WMU with similar resumes. Navy’s played a harder schedule and would have wins over the likes of a ranked Houston and a pretty good Temple team. WMU’s beaten Toledo (good) and Northwestern (meh).

Entering this weekend, WMU’s ranked 17th, and Navy’s two spots behind at 19. A Navy win over 9-3 Temple as WMU beats 8-4 Ohio would likely close that gap even more. And six days later, Navy’s going to be favored against bowl-eligible Army.

Sure, Navy would have two losses to WMU’s zero. But the Playoff committee cares about schedule strength, which is why it ranked the Mountain West’s Boise State above WMU for as long as it did.

That was its plan last year before a Navy loss to Houston made Army-Navy moot. It’s also what Playoff executive director Bill Hancock says to McMurphy now:

”If the committee believes the result of the Army-Navy game could affect Navy’s ranking and therefore its place in the playoff or its selection as the Group of 5 representative, only the pairings that affect Army and Navy would be delayed until after the Army-Navy game.”

The domino effect would be substantial, mainly for mid-major bowls. Whoever doesn’t get the Cotton bid will need to be placed in some other bowl.

(And there’s a chance that a 13-0 WMU wouldn’t fall all the way to the MAC’s Dollar General Bowl, if it didn’t make the Cotton. There’s talk of a negotiation that could slip the Broncos into a better bowl that’s not ordinarily part of the MAC’s lineup.)

It doesn’t take much imagination to see a lot of teams waiting around uncomfortably to learn their fates, up to a week after they’d planned on knowing. That would jam up ticket sales, promotional drives, and team preparation.

McMurphy reports a potential solution, arranged ahead of time:

The solution is based on several factors, most notably that South Alabama and Louisiana-Lafayette each win Saturday to become bowl-eligible and Clemson and Washington win the ACC and Pac-12 titles, respectively.

If all that happens, the tentative plan would be as follows:

Navy is the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion

Navy goes to the Cotton Bowl, Western Michigan plays North Texas in the Heart of Dallas Bowl, and Army plays a Big 12 team, most likely Baylor, in the Armed Forces Bowl.

Western Michigan is the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion

Western Michigan goes to the Cotton Bowl, Army plays North Texas in the Heart of Dallas Bowl, and Navy plays a Big 12 team, most likely Baylor, in the Armed Forces Bowl.

Yep. The difference here is that this involves the national Playoff committee, rather than just one conference’s bowl tie-ins or an independent’s prearranged bowl.

If eligible, Army or Navy can usually accept a bowl invite before they play each other. One or the other often has a predetermined non-New Year’s destination anyway. (For Navy this year, it’d be the Armed Forces Bowl.)

And there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get what you seek.