If you want to win exactly 9 games a year in Conference USA, employ Skip Holtz

On Wednesday, I wrote that no one in the midmajor universe punches its weight as well as Western Kentucky. You could say the same thing about Skip Holtz.

In his last six years of leading a Conference USA school, Holtz has won nine games five times. He did it at East Carolina in 2008 and 2009, left for USF, then landed back in C-USA, at Louisiana Tech, in 2013. After a first-year reset, he’s gone 9-5, 9-4, and 9-5.

His reputation has been defined by what happened in between. He inherited a sliding USF and turned that slide into a free fall, going 8-5, then 5-7, then 3-9. And who knows? Perhaps if he were to one day land back in a power conference, the same thing would happen. Or maybe it wouldn’t.

All we know is that at the C-USA level, he has been stupendous. His Bulldogs surged to 34th in S&P+ in 2014 thanks to an aggressive defense. In 2015, he lost coordinator Manny Diaz to Mississippi State and watched his defense fade, but the offense picked up the slack; it rose from 51st to 26th in Off. S&P+ and won nine games once more.

In 2016, the defense was problematic again. The Bulldogs headed into Saturday’s Armed Forces Bowl vs. Navy ranking just 103rd in Def. S&P+. No worries, though. The offense ranked eighth, and Tech was the clear No. 2 team in the conference behind WKU.

On Friday in Fort Worth, Tech outlasted the AAC’s No. 2 team, Navy. Granted, the defense allowed 459 yards (7.5 per play) and 45 to the Midshipmen. But the Bulldogs gained 497, and more importantly, they were the last team to touch the ball. They took over in a tie game with 3:40 left, ate up all 220 seconds in nine plays, and booted the game-winning field goal as time expired. Final score: Tech 48, Navy 45.

At some point, you want to move past shootouts. Tech scored at least 34 in three of five losses and allowed at least 28 in three wins. And this defense doesn’t have the excuse of youth. Heading into the game, the Bulldogs’ top seven tacklers were either juniors or seniors.

Still, put Holtz in Conference USA, and he’s going to win a lot of games. At this point, there’s no reason to think that’s going to change.

In its first bowl since 1987, Eastern Michigan advanced the ball to at least its 49-yard line on all 10 possessions. The Eagles created six scoring opportunities (first downs inside the opponent’s 40) to Old Dominion’s five.

While the Monarchs generated three touchdowns and a field goal (their fifth opportunity was forfeited by running out the clock at the end of the game), the Eagles managed two touchdowns, two field goals, and two failures. Brogan Roback was picked off from the ODU 13 early in the second quarter, and after a pass from Roback to Blake Banham in the dying seconds of the first half, EMU couldn’t get the ball spiked in time to stop the clock.

The result: EMU gained 76 more yards and created more scoring chances but fell, 24-20. And when ODU forced the Eagles to punt with 5:21 left, the Monarchs didn’t give them another chance. Ray Lawry and Jeremy Cox rushed seven times for 47 yards, and ODU ran out the clock.

Roback finished with 300 yards and two touchdowns, but his lone pick was crippling; Lawry and Cox rushed 33 times for 180 yards.

It was a disappointing finish for EMU, but the bowl was just a bonus. The Eagles close 2016 with a 7-6 record after going 7-41 from 2012-15. Chris Creighton’s rebuild found traction, and the Eagles surged with almost no senior starters. Most of their key weapons are scheduled to return, from junior Roback to sophomore running back Ian Eriksen to star junior receiver Sergio Bailey to freshman receiver Dieuly Aristilde (a bowl standout with seven catches for 80 yards) to 13 of the top 16 tacklers.

On Friday, the spotlight belonged to the Monarchs. We’ve seen some impressive startups over the last decade, but Bobby Wilder’s performance in Norfolk has been spectacular. He was hired to create an ODU program in 2007, went 9-2 in its first season in 2009, and pulled off back-to-back top-10 FCS performances in 2011-12. And after holding steady in their first two years in FBS (11-13 overall, 7-9 in conference play), the Monarchs broke out in 2016.

ODU finished 7-1 and tied Western Kentucky for the C-USA East lead; the Monarchs were 0-3 against teams in the S&P+ top 35 (Appalachian State, NC State, WKU) but beat everybody else. They finish the season 10-3. Not bad for a program that didn’t exist a decade ago.

Sometimes it comes down to who holds onto interceptions. Based on passes defensed (nine by Ohio, eight by Troy) and fumbles (two by each team), expected turnovers in the Dollar General Bowl in Mobile were about even: 2.74 for Ohio, 2.96 for Troy.

Instead, Troy recovered three of four fumbles. And while Frank Solich’s Bobcats reeled in two interceptions, Neal Brown’s Trojans held onto four; two inside the Ohio 20.

You think that maybe made a difference in a 28-23 Troy win?

Ohio outgained the Trojans by 71 yards (393-322) and held an awesome Troy passing game in check; Brandon Silvers completed just 24 of 41 passes for 235 yards with a touchdown, a pick, and a sack. But Trevon Sanders’ interception off a Seth Calloway deflection set the Trojans up at the 4-yard line midway through the third quarter, and Jordan Chunn’s four-yard score gave Troy an insurmountable 28-17 lead.

Tight postseason losses, of course, are nothing new to Solich. Ohio lost 29-23 to Western Michigan in the MAC title game and 31-20 in last season’s Camellia Bowl and is now 0-4 in MAC title games and 2-6 in bowls under Solich.

The key takeaway: The Bobcats have been to four MAC title games and eight bowls under Solich. Before Solich: no title games, two bowls (none since 1968).

After moving into the polls for the first time, the Trojans finished the regular season losing two of three. But the narrow bowl win gave Troy 10 for the season, its most since going 11-2 in FCS in 1999. As storied as Larry Blakeney’s tenure was at Troy, he managed nine wins only once at the FBS level and eight wins four times.

Troy averaged only four wins per year over Blakeney’s last four seasons in charge and went just 4-8 last season in Brown’s debut. But its second-year surge was both legitimate (backed up by strong stats) and potentially sustainable. Silver and his entire receiving corps are scheduled to return, and while the defensive front seven was senior-laden, the secondary should be one of the best in the Group of Five next year.

Friday’s action was a celebration of builds (ODU) and rebuilds (EMU, Louisiana Tech, Troy, Ohio), I guess.