2016 Military Bowl, Wake Forest vs. Temple: Date, time, location and everything to know

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The Military Bowl presented by Northrup Grumman takes center stage on Tuesday afternoon. The game’s features a matchup between the ACC and the American, and has been around since 2008. The game was first played in Washington D.C. at RFK Stadium, but moved to Annapolis in 2013.

Last year, Navy stayed home and gave Keenan Reynolds a proper sendoff with a 44-28 win in their own stadium over Pitt. Reynolds threw for 126 yards and a touchdown, and ran for 144 yards and three touchdowns to pace the Midshipmen to the victory. Reynolds, after setting and then ceding the all-time touchdowns record, reclaimed it during Navy’s victory, which capped one of the best Midshipmen seasons ever.

Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s version of the Military Bowl, set for Dec. 27 in Annapolis, Md., at the home of the Naval Academy.

Date and time: Tuesday, Dec. 27, 3:30 p.m.

TV channel: ESPN

Location: Annapolis, Md.

Stadium: Navy-Marine Corps Stadium

Last year’s score: Navy 44, Pitt 28

Last year’s attendance: 36,352

Last year’s TV rating:

Last year’s payout for each school:

Teams with the most all-time appearances: Maryland and Navy (tie), 2

Teams with the most all-time wins: Eight teams tied with one win

Wake Forest (6-6, 3-5 in ACC)

You’re not reading this wrong. Wake Forest is in a bowl game for the first time since 2011 and just the 11th time in program history. The last appearance was a six-point Music City Bowl loss to Mississippi State five years ago, which brought the team’s all-time record to 6-4 in bowls. Now Dave Clawson gets a chance to make that better in his third year on the job, after he bounced back from two 3-9 seasons to get the Deacs eligible.

Wake Forest isn’t the most thrilling watch in the world, and that’s OK. The offense is pretty bad, with no real passing game to speak of and a rushing attack that suffers as a result. Wake finished the regular season scoring 19 points per game, which is right around the bottom of the FBS leaderboard. Junior quarterback John Wolford threw nine interceptions against seven touchdowns, and he got sacked on one in 10 drop-backs.

The defense, though? That’s a pretty good unit. The Deacs allowed an excellent 22 points per game, in large part because they did a good job keeping teams to field goals instead of touchdowns. There’s nothing that advanced about Wake, and the Deacs aren’t awesome at any one thing. But they’ve made real progress, and now their reward is a bowl game. That’s cool.

Temple (10-3, 7-1 in American Athletic)

Your 2016 AAC champions, thanks to a road win against Navy in the conference title game.

The Owls’ bread and butter is their defense. They lost cornerstone linebacker Tyler Matakevich after last season, but they’ve kept preventing teams from scoring. Temple is particularly good against the pass, where it racks up a bunch of sacks. Fifth-year senior Haason Reddick is one of the country’s great pass-rushers, and even when teams get throws off, they only get about 6 yards per attempt. It’s just really hard to move through the air against the Owls, so teams try to run, and they wind up trying to beat a havoc-wreaking line that’s really hard to beat.

The offense is much less exciting. The Owls rely a bunch on running back Jahad Thomas, who’s the leading rusher and third-leading receiver. The running game, overall, isn’t good, while the passing game is solid but not earth-shattering. The Temple offense spent October and November being pretty normal but still good enough to win with that defense’s help, and that’s all that matters.

Matt Rhule’s done a really good job in Philadelphia. Temple isn’t thrilling, but the defense is serious and the offense works in that context. That makes the Owls dangerous.