Week 15 Recap

Our game of the weekend also had one of the weirdest finishes we’ve seen this season. With the MAC West Division on the line, Western Michigan and Ball State battled in Muncie. WMU looked to take the lead in the first quarter, but saw two different drives stall out inside the Ball State 10. The Ball State offense wasn’t doing much better, only mustering a TD drive, but even that ended in anti-climatic XP missed. The second quarter showed off the offenses as the Broncos took a 20-13 halftime lead. The Bronco defense clamped down in the third quarter, forcing an opening drive punt and getting a turnover on downs, while also extending their lead. A turning point for the game happened at the end of the quarter, Cardinal Corner Chris Agyemang intercepted a Kaleb Eleby attempted screen pass to put the Cardinals in position to get back on the board. Over the next three minutes of game time, Ball State march down the field to make it a one score game, missed the XP (again), forced a three and out, then had a one play 55 yard catch and run by Justin Hall and two point conversion to tie the game at 27. Western drove down the field, missed a chip shot FG. The teams then exchanged unsuccessful drives, before the Cardinals drove down the field to take the lead with 30 seconds left. Then, the finish mentioned above happened. In the midst of the chaos, Ball State punched it’s ticket to Detroit, with a chance to knock off undefeated Buffalo.

The other semi-final for the weekend was on Friday night. The game was a home game for San Jose State, but due to the previously mentioned guidelines by Santa Clara County, the game was played in Las Vegas, with the colors for New Mexico. To match that weirdness, San Jose St spotted Nevada a 20-7 lead, which should have been more but Nevada missed a chip shot before the halftime buzzer. The second half got weird with San Jose St returning the second half kickoff for a TD. Nevada then turned around on the ensuing possession and drove down the field, which led to a “fumble” where Nevada’s Toa Taua was down upon alternate replay angles, but the ref crew did not overturn the call on the field. The Spartans marched down the field in 6 minutes and 12 plays to take the lead for the first time. The Spartans added a quick 69 yard run by Tyler Nevens to put the game out of reach for the Spartans. San Jose State, by virtue of their win, will now host their first Mountain West Championship Game.

A personal favorite game every year is Army-Navy. While this year it didn’t have the pomp and circumstance that usually surround it, due to other games this weekend and COVID moving the game to West Point, it still delivered a truly unique and fun game, despite the score. Army seemed to control this every step of the way, with Navy unable to get their offense moving, culminating in the goal line stand in the beginning of the second half that I’m still unsure how Navy didn’t score from. Army took all momentum from that point forward, allowing -4 yards of total offense from Navy. Army moves to 8-2 and now has won four of their last five against Navy.

The final word I left you all with last week is that I was concerned for both Coastal Carolina and BYU coming off the high of their dramatic showdown two Saturdays ago. While BYU kept San Diego State at arms length all night (but not covering), CCU had some troubles in Troy. Noting that their Sun Belt Championship opponent Louisiana would have this week off, it looked as though the Chants were sleep walking through this game, giving Troy opportunity after opportunity to stay in the game. Then, in the fourth quarter, they struck. They got a goal line stand of the CCU offense to keep the game close and then took advantage of a poor decision by Grayson McCall, turning both into scores to take the lead with under two minutes to go. McCall rebounded and took his team down the field in 45 seconds to retake the lead that they would never surrender back.

We have a bevy of clinching games this weekend to round out our Championship Weekend. UAB, who had not played since Halloween, got their elusive fourth game in the C-USA conference to knock off Rice 21-16, and clinched their third straight C-USA West Division Championship. Marshall had their game with Charlotte canceled. That opened the door for Florida Atlantic to throw some doubt into the C-USA East Division, but failed to put away Southern Miss in a letdown Thursday night. Boise State and Buffalo made the formalities of their appearances into the MWC and MAC Championships (respectively) realities with wins over Wyoming and Akron. To finish the wrap around, Memphis knocked off UH to put themselves at the top of the next tier of American teams and App State had a fourth quarter comeback win against Georgia Southern.

Week 16 Games to Watch

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Tulsa vs Cincinnati (-16) (American Championship Game)

This game was canceled this past week because of an outbreak in Cincinnati, and because of previous rules that use CFP rankings for hosting of this week’s Championship, so now this game essentially moves to Nippert for all of the marbles. A thing to look for tomorrow’s CFP rankings is to see if Cincinnati gets any bump from the Florida loss. This game may give Cincinnati a super outside shot at the CFP (I mean probably not but still worth imagining).