The American Athletic Conference Championship will be a physical slugfest between Temple and Navy.
Navy vs. Temple, AAC Championship 2016: Start time, live stream, TV schedule, and 3 things to know
Navy will have home field advantage when it hosts Temple for the AAC title.
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Temple won the AAC East by virtue of its head-to-head win over USF, as the Bulls and Owls finished the regular season tied with 7-1 conference records. They've won six straight coming into the AAC title game, and running back Jahad Thomas just had his best game of the season last week against East Carolina. If he can help Temple get out to an early lead, it will make this difficult on Navy, which is not structurally set up to play from behind.
It’s been a good year for Navy. The Midshipmen come into this game ranked, and they were the first ones to knock Houston off its perch at the top of the conference. Ken Niumatalolo’s team is yet again the gold standard of service academy football programs, and that doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
How to watch, stream and listen
TV: 12 p.m. ET, ABC
Online streaming: WatchESPN
Spread: Navy is favored by three points.
Make friends: Get to SB Nation’s team blog chats for this game at Underdog Dynasty.
Three big things to know
1. Unfortunately for these two teams, if Western Michigan wins the MAC title game on Friday night, the G5 New Year’s Six bowl berth will be locked up. The AAC’s bowl tie-ins are a lot less glamorous after the possibility of the access bowls goes away, but winning the conference title should be plenty of incentive for these programs.
2. Temple has reeled off eight wins in nine games following a close loss to Penn State, and has quietly had a great year. A win in this game would give the Owls back-to-back 10 win seasons for the first time in program history. These are the golden days of Temple football.
3. Keenan Reynolds was one of the best players in Navy history, so there was understandable concern about how the Midshipmen would fare without him this year. Enter Will Worth, and things have gone just fine. Worth has rushed for nearly 1,200 yards and 25 touchdowns, and is completing over 61 percent of his passes.
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