After a long season that culminated in an exciting MAC Championship game victory, 13-0 Western Michigan now awaits its fate. The College Football Playoff selection committee will decide which team is the highest-ranked from the Group of 5. That team will head to the Cotton Bowl and take on a top-10 team on New Year’s Day.
P.J. Fleck has the best answer on whether 13-0 WMU has earned itself a Cotton Bowl bid
The Broncos head man is all cotton everything.
Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
WMU coach P.J. Fleck has his own opinion on who it should be.
The rub here is that the selection process may have to wait on Navy, if the Midshipmen can beat Temple in Saturday’s AAC Championship. Navy has two more losses than WMU does, but has played a tougher schedule.
Navy could be a wrecking ball to the bowl system plans by causing a delay in its proceedings, since Army-Navy isn’t until a week after Selection Sunday. That directly affects Western Michigan because of how close they are in the committee’s rankings to the Broncos.
Entering this weekend, WMU’s ranked 17th, and Navy is 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.
WMU did it’s part. Now Fleck and the Broncos will have to wait to see if the selection committee thinks it was enough to wear all that cotton to the actual Cotton Bowl.
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