The college football world avoided a week of bowl drama when Temple rocked No. 19 Navy, 34-10, to win the American Athletic Conference title.
Temple whoops Navy in 2016 AAC title game, so WMU should be Cotton Bowling
The Owls dominated a Cotton hopeful to record a conference championship for the first time in decades.
This is 10-3 Temple’s first conference title since 1967 in the Middle Atlantic and continues an astounding turnaround that started under Al Golden and continues under Matt Rhule. The Owls have three 10-win seasons ever, two of them in back-to-back years by Rhule, who’s also 14-2 over the last two years in the country’s top mid-major conference.
Seriously, Temple won 11 games from 1991 through 1997. It could win 11 in 2016, counting the bowl.
The Owls raced to an early lead and limited Navy’s famed option offense to 3.9 yards per carry, the banged-up Navy’s second worst average of the season. Temple won the turnover game, three to zero, the first time in eight games Navy’s been in the negative.
This game settled one controversy.
Thanks to Navy’s performance this season, the AAC Championship and its pending result could’ve triggered a chain reaction in a number of mid-major bowls that would’ve lasted until after Army-Navy.
The top Group of 5 team in the Playoff rankings gets an automatic spot in a New Year’s Six bowl game. This year it’s the Cotton Bowl, but because 9-2 Navy had a 13-0 Western Michigan to contend with in the standings, things might’ve gotten interesting.
Entering this weekend, WMU’s ranked 17th, and Navy is two spots behind at 19. A Navy win over 9-3 Temple after WMU beat 8-5 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.
It’s still possible that a three-loss, previously unranked Temple could contend for the spot after knocking off Navy, but that would be a bit much. The matchup will be made official on Sunday, and let’s assume it’ll be WMU vs. a top-10 Power 5 team.
We’ll also have to wait and see where Temple ends up. Navy’s got a spot waiting in the Armed Forces Bowl.
WMU head coach PJ Fleck certainly made his opinion known after the MAC title game, even before Navy’s loss ended that controversy.
Temple and Western Michigan are conference champions.
What a time to be alive.
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