It's Championship Week in college football in all conferences except the Big XII and Sun Belt. These lesser conferences do not have conference championship games and so staggered their schedule to make sure they still had games on TV this weekend.
Ohio State fans will not be seeing the Buckeyes in action. Another 11-win regular season punctuated by the one loss it could not afford to have in hindsight means the Buckeyes will be watching Penn State make its first appearance in the Big Ten Championship Game. Ohio State fans can take some comfort knowing the playoff committee No. 2 team seems to have built its case with wins elsewhere against No. 9 Oklahoma, No. 5 Michigan, and No. 6 Wisconsin.
Anyway, here's what to watch this weekend while Ohio State's players await their bowl assignment.
Friday
Western Michigan vs. Ohio [Ford Field] (ESPN2, 7 p.m.). The sound you hear is an audible groan coming from Arlington, Texas. The Cotton Bowl is bound to take the highest-ranked Group of Five team and that will likely be Western Michigan if it wins Friday night.
You could tell the playoff committee was looking for every reason not to compel the Cotton Bowl to take Western Michigan. Western Michigan's best wins were a one-point upset of 6-6 Northwestern and a 24-point win over a bowl-ineligible Illinois team. It ran over the MAC teams it played, but the MAC, for all its excitement, is not a quality conference. Few would advance a serious argument that it is.
P.J. Fleck is still on the verge of immortality in Kalamazoo. (Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports)
This reluctance to bestow the Group of Five invite to a MAC team even resulted in a 9-1 Boise State team ranked ahead of a 10-0 Western Michigan team two weeks ago. 9-2 Houston was also ranked ahead of Western Michigan last week.
Alas, almost every other team that could challenge Western Michigan for that spot imploded down the stretch. Houston lost its regular season finale and was not going to play in the conference championship game anyway. Boise State lost to Air Force. San Diego State, which secured the West in the Mountain West almost a month ago, has lost two straight. Wyoming, which will play in the conference championship game against San Diego State, lost two of its last three.
All that remains is Navy, which the Cotton Bowl would almost assuredly love more than Western Michigan in its bowl. However, Navy has two games remaining and is two spots behind Western Michigan. Navy poses additional logistical challenges since it has a game next week against Army. It could seriously logjam the bowl selection process.
Colorado vs. Washington [Levi's Stadium] (FOX, 9 p.m.). This is the first appearance for both in the Pac-12 Championship Game and a wonderful matchup if you're big into early 1990s nostalgia.
Both programs were powerhouses in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Colorado split the 1990 national championship with Georgia Tech while Washington split a national championship in 1991 with Miami. That 1991 Washington Huskies team, in particular, was a world-beater.
However, both programs became little more than afterthoughts as they struggled to adapt to a changing football climate in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Bill McCartney retired from Colorado in 1994 to focus more on faith, family, and Promise Keepers. The Buffs had some success with his replacements, Rick Neuheisel and later Gary Barnett. However, Barnett's tenure ended in ignominy.
Dan Hawkins replaced him. Fans remember how that went.
Mike MacIntyre is a testament to patience in an impatient profession. (Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports)
Colorado floundered at the same time Oklahoma and Texas found new life in the new Big XII. Colorado's eventual transition to the Pac-12 made the Buffaloes immediately the worst team in the conference. That 2011 team finished 3-10. A 1-11 record the next year led to Jon Embree's dismissal. Mike Macintyre came from San Jose State to right the ship. It finally paid dividends in 2016 after a 4-8 start to his tenure in Boulder.
Washington's story is similar. "The Dawgfather", Don James, resigned after 1992 amid an improper benefits scandal involving quarterback Billy Joe Hobert. Almost every hire after him was a bad one. Jim Lambright floundered for six years before Washington replaced him with Rick Neuheisel. Neuheisel's tenure was brilliant in the short term; the one-loss Huskies beat Miami in 2000 and won the Rose Bowl that same season. His tenure ended in 2002 amid a slew of scandals. Keith Gilbertson replaced him for two years and was fired after a 1-10 season in 2004. Tyrone Willingham replaced him and effectively served as a neutron bomb for the program.
Steve Sarkisian did okay for five years in Seattle, but was always waiting for a shot at being USC's head coach. Washington finally got the head coach it never knew it always wanted in Chris Petersen. Washington, arguably the worst Pac-12 program of the past decade, could win its first conference championship since 2000.
Ohio State fans may be best served rooting for Washington. The playoff committee gave a strong signal that it doesn't think Washington is that much better than Michigan. A Washington loss gives enough impetus for Michigan to jump into the field of four.
Saturday
Kansas State at TCU (FS1, 12 p.m.). The Big XII is still playing football. 7-4 Kansas State finishes its regular season with 6-5 TCU.
Troy at Georgia Southern (ESPN2, 12 p.m.). Troy will secure at least a share of the Sun Belt championship with a win over 4-7 Georgia Southern.
Temple at Navy (ABC, 12 p.m.). This is the American Athletic Conference Championship Game. Let's stop for a moment and appreciate how crazy the thought of this matchup is.
Navy may have more reason to celebrate on Saturday. (Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports)
Navy was an independent team for the longest time because existing conferences saw no room for it. That's not why it's appearance in this game is crazy. Instead, Navy as military academy is hamstrung in the caliber and type of athlete it can recruit. The United States Naval Academy's mission is far more important than football, which it otherwise sees as a fun tradition and pastime. Surrounded by teams with far higher ceilings, like Houston, Memphis, Southern Methodist and Tulane in its own division, it nonetheless finished conference play 7-1 and beat every team in its West division.
Older fans (say, those at least in their 30s) may remember a time when Temple was ingloriously expelled from the former Big East for being a bad football program. Bobby Wallace, who led Temple from 1998 through its expulsion from the Big East, coached the Owls to a combined 19-60 record from 1998 to 2004. An 0-11 record as independent in 2005 led to his dismissal.
It found a momentary home in the MAC in 2007 and an unexpected savior in Al Golden. Golden led the Owls to a 9-4 record in 2009 and MAC East crown. He followed that with an 8-4 record in 2010 before leaving for Miami. Matt Rhule, his replacement and current coach, has largely kept that pace. Now, Temple is playing in its second consecutive conference championship game.
Navy has more at stake on Saturday as the host. It still has an outside shot at the Group of Five invite to the Cotton Bowl.
Louisiana Tech at Western Kentucky (ESPN, 12 p.m.). This is the Conference USA Championship Game. Expect a high-scoring contest, albeit one that will favor the Hilltoppers by the game's end. The Hilltoppers are trying to repeat as C-USA champions.
Oklahoma State at Oklahoma (FOX, 12:30 p.m.). Bedlam in Norman will again be a de facto conference championshp game. Oklahoma is 8-0 in league play while Oklahoma State has just one loss early in the season to Baylor. The champion will at least go to the Sugar Bowl to face a representative from the SEC. Oklahoma, meanwhile, has an outside prayer and sneaking into the playoff again for a second straight year.
The probability of that seems remote, however.
Baylor at West Virginia (FS1, 3:30 p.m.). West Virginia's two losses this season were to the two Oklahoma schools. That cost the Mountaineers a shot at the conference title. It'll finish at home with Baylor.
Alabama vs. Florida [Georgia Dome] (CBS, 4 p.m.). This is the SEC Championship Game again. It will end in another huge Alabama win again. Alabama, a 24-point favorite, could lose by six touchdowns and still be at least a three-seed in the playoff.
Arkansas State at Texas State (ESPN2, 7:30 p.m.). 6-5 Arkansas State travels to San Marcos to play 2-9 Texas State in a game that's available if you absolutely need background noise during a late dinner.
San Diego State at Wyoming (ESPN, 7:45 p.m.). This is the Mountain West Conference Championship Game and it could've been so much more.
This game, incidentally a rematch from two weeks ago, seemed like an inevitability when Wyoming scored an improbable upset over Boise State ealier in the season. San Diego State was meanwhile running roughshod in the West. Both teams building momentum toward this conference championship game could have maybe played with the Group of Five invite in play.
Instead, San Diego State lost two straight games and Wyoming lost two of its last three. Both are limping into this game. If Boise State had beat Air Force, Wyoming wouldn't even be playing this game, let alone hosting it.
Wyoming hosted the regular season matchup too. It won that 34-33, stopping a two-point conversion with no time left on the clock in a wild finish. You can watch the full finish below.
Clemson vs. Virginia Tech [Camping World Stadium] (ABC, 8 p.m.). This is the ACC Championship Game. It would normally be held in Charlotte but the ACC moved the game to Orlando in protest of North Carolina's House Bill 2 legislation of restroom use.
Virginia Tech joined the ACC in 2004 and instantly became one of the league's marquee members. Clemson is a mainstay in the conference. Both are separated by less than a five-hour drive. Both universities and their locations have similar feels to them.
Yet, both seldom play each other of late. The last contest between these two was in the 2012 regular season. Clemson won 38-17. Clemson has won the past three meetings, which includes the regular season meeting and conference championship game in 2011.
Clemson guarantees a berth in the playoff with a win. Virginia Tech could be spoiler. This game could get fun.
Wisconsin vs. Penn State [Lucas Oil Stadium] (FOX, 8 p.m.). For the second straight year, the Big Ten Championship Game will feature the third and fourth best teams in the conference. I'm not even mad, or being a "hater." I don't think divisions need readjustment. I think that occurrence in back-to-back years is kind of incredible.
Penn State won an honest contest against the Buckeyes, albeit in "flukey" fashion. The tie-breaker says they belong over Ohio State and the win-loss record says they belong over a two-loss Michigan team that crushed it by 39 points earlier in the year. There are no arguments here about Penn State's inclusion, just that the Nittany Lions are the third best team in their division.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, lost to both Michigan and Ohio State in consecutive weeks but banked on an implosion by Nebraska to secure another berth into the conference championship game. The divisions have not been constant, but it says something bad about the "western" teams in the conference that Wisconsin has been in all but two Big Ten Conference Championship Games since they started in 2011.
Watch the Big Ten Conference Championship Game with that in mind (if you can wince through FOX's overwrought production of these games). The Big Ten Conference Championship Game this year looks more like the junior varsity warm-up to one rather than a legit conference championship game itself.
