Welcome back to the 18Stripes G5 Top 10. The week may have been slower than weeks past, it doesn’t mean we don’t have stuff to talk about. Let’s dive into the action from the week that was.

Also Considered: Army, Air Force, SMU, Utah St, UCF

Week 12 Recap

The Show Goes On

We have to start with the best finish of the weekend. UTSA, in a miracle finish, kept its undefeated season (and slim NY6 hopes) alive with a 34-31 at home against defending C-USA Champions UAB. This game should have easily been in hand for Bill Clark and the Blazers. They had a fourth and inches on their own 42 yard line. UTSA had no timeouts, so a first down seals the game for UAB and puts them in the drivers seat for the C-USA West.

This is important to mention that UAB’s RB Dewayne McBride was wearing down the UTSA defense to the tune of 144 yards and what would be the game winning TD at this point. Instead, Clark takes a delay of game penalty and punt back to the Roadrunners. With about 90 seconds left and no timeouts, UTSA QB Frank Harris took over. Competitions to Oscar Cardenas and De’Corian Clark got them into UAB territory. Another Clark catch on the near sideline got them to the 10. Harris almost got in on his own but fell short. After a UAB injury timeout, Harris (after a dropped snap) found Cardenas (despite a deflected ball) for the winning score. 

The Roadrunners clinch the C-USA West for the first time in its program history. They are the first team from Texas to be 11-0 since 2011 when Houston and Case Keenum won its first 12 games before losing in the C-USA Championship. The Roadrunners look to avoid that history repeating and continuing to put their team on the map.

Movers and Shakers

Have to start this section with the biggest potential mover of the weekend. Cincinnati took care of business against SMU in their home finale, 48-14. The most notable part of the result was Cincy QB Desmond Ridder throwing, rushing for, and receiving a touchdown. The other notable results happened in Salt Lake City and Clemson. Utah and Clemson’s victories have guaranteed that two Power 5 conferences will have a champion with at least two losses. 

That seemingly was the roadmap Cincinnati needed on top of going undefeated. Combined with the uncertainty of the Big 12 Champion having multiple losses, the path to a Cincinnati playoff berth seems straightforward. They obviously still need to win out (and probably make the Houston game a comfortable win to boost their resume) but the Bearcats path looks more clear than it was two weeks ago.

The biggest movement from the week came at the bottom. Along with SMU falling out of the Top Ten for this week, we saw another bottom half team drop out after a blowout. With a chance to put themselves firmly in the pole position of the Mountain Division, Utah State fell short. After trailing 24-17 at halftime, Wyoming shut out the home team en route to a 44-17 blowout win. 

The win gave the Cowboys bowl eligibility and puts the Aggies’ Mountain West Championship hopes in doubt. Wyoming had two 100+ yard rushers on the night, with 34 minutes of possession. We’ll dive into this further down, but this creates a sliding doors type of game for Mountain West.

The other notable result is the team that came in to replace Utah St and SMU. I said, with Western Michigan falling out several weeks ago, that I didn’t think we’d see a MAC team the rest of the way. However, the cardiac kids in Dekalb have done. Northern Illinois moved to 8-3 on the season with an overtime win against defending MAC Champs Buffalo 33-27. 

Northern Illinois now has their ticket punched to Detroit, representing the MAC West. In a division that had multiple teams have a chance to take in Toledo and Western Michigan, Northern Illinois used luck in close games to overcome an 0-6 2020 season to on the precipice of a 9 win season (10 if they win the MAC Championship).

Top Teams Wraparound

Houston finished off a perfect American conference schedule, winning on Friday night at home against Memphis, 31-13. The Coogs have now won ten in a row after dropping their Labor Day Weekend matchup with Texas Tech and look to roll into their matchup with Cincinnati. BYU made quick work of Georgia Southern 34-17 as it looks to have another ten win season on its horizon. 

Louisiana pulled away from Malik Willis and Liberty on the road, winning 42-14 to move one step closer to their Sun Belt Championship. I think the Cajuns deserved to be ranked on Tuesday in the CFP Rankings, but I think their first weekend loss to Texas is going to ironically hold them back. 

Elsewhere in the Sun Belt, App State clinched their spot in Lafayette with a 34-7 thumping of Troy (who recently let their coach go). Coastal, with Grayson McCall back, kept Texas State at bay in a 35-21 win at home. Finally, back to Friday night, San Diego State fought off a feisty UNLV team 28-20.

Week 13 Preview

Headliners

The two headliners involve some independents, for reasons that will make sense below. First, we have BYU’s final game in it’s Pac-12 South schedule as they take on USC. The Trojans, as I’m sure Notre Dame fans will love to point out, have fallen off a cliff since firing Clay Helton in mid-September. The Trojans need to knock off a ranked opponent for the first time since knocking off #10 Utah in early 2019. 

The other matchup shows the boys from West Point taking on the fighting Malik Willis’. The Flames will have to make hard adjustments as they pivot from taking on the more open Louisiana offense to a more rigid triple option from head coach Jeff Monken. Army has been flying under the radar, coming close knocking off some big names this season in Wisconsin and (briefly) Wake Forest. I could see Army sneaking into the Top Ten by their annual showdown with Navy.

Conference Highlights (Clinching Scenarios Edition)

For this week, I wanted to focus on some of the matchups that have more bearing on Championship Weekend. With the regular season winding down, we take a look at the potential matchups we’ll see two Saturdays from now. The following teams have clinched spots in their respective conference championships:

• American: Houston (8-0)
• C-USA: UTSA (West Division)
• MAC: Northern Illinois (West Division)
• Mountain West: None
• Sun Belt: App State (East Division) Louisiana (West Division)

American-Cincinnati at East Carolina: Despite everything looking up for the Bearcats, things are not fully guaranteed for them in the American quite yet. With Houston done with their conference schedule at a perfect 8-0, Cincinnati now needs to ensure their own perfect conference record. A win against the resurgent Pirates in East Carolina on Friday will ensure the game will be played in Ohio. I imagine ECU will give them their best shot (the line is only Cincy -14), but the Bearcats get an undefeated regular season.

C-USA-Western Kentucky at Marshall: Western Kentucky’s experiment of hijacking the offense of Houston Baptist has worked wonders for this season. Bailey Zappe under center and OC Zach Kittley have infused an excitement in the Hilltoppers and this is their best chance to show off how great their success can be. Their lone loss in conference play was a 42-46 loss in San Antonio and a win in Marshall would give them another shot at the Roadrunners in the Alamodome.

MAC-Miami (OH) at Kent State: This a simple winner takes all scenario in the MAC. The Golden Flashes and Dustin Crum have used their win over Northern Illinois to push themselves to the precipice of a conference championship. 2019 champs Miami (OH) have the experience to show poise on the road and try and get back to Detroit. The interesting thing about this matchup is that the RedHawks and the Flashes’ losses in conference both came across division, so this will be the first division loss for either team. It really doesn’t have any higher stakes than that.

Mountain West-Fresno State at San Jose State, Boise State at San Diego State, Utah State at New Mexico, UNLV at Air Force: Whew. Four games hold the power in both divisions in the Mountain West. I tweeted this out late Saturday night but here is all the scenarios laid out for all four of these games:

The fun thing about this is that these games are played on either Thursday or Friday. Fresno travels to San Jose and plays at 3:30 on Thanksgiving if you don’t want to watch the Lions/Cowboys combo before the Egg Bowl. Fresno needs to win this game to keep its chances alive. The next day, at noon eastern (9am local), Boise State needs to win against San Diego State to keep its seemingly long shot chances at the division last week alive. San Diego State will know how safe they are based on the result the prior day, but the Aztecs will have a challenge regardless. 

An hour later Utah State and New Mexico kickoff. Utah State is in an interesting position after their loss to Wyoming. The second tiebreaker for Mountain West is losses in the division. So, if all three of Utah St, Air Force, and Boise all win or if they all lose, Utah State loses out on the second tiebreaker. They need to win and get some help from some of the underdogs.

At the 3:30 window, Air Force hosts UNLV. The Rebels have been feisty all year, but Air Force’s offense will drain their defense. It will be up to the UNLV offense to try and make plays to keep Air Force at bay. The Falcons’ path is the easiest compared to the others. The scenario I mentioned above that hurts Utah State helps Air Force, due to their head to head result over Boise State. This race will be interesting and something to monitor if you’re a neutral and have nothing to monitor on Black Friday.

Top Teams Roundup

I know I threw a lot at you all with that last section so we’ll rapid fire through the rest of the schedule. Northern Illinois takes on Western Michigan on Tuesday, getting extra rest before their trip to Detroit. Coastal finishes its disappointing regular season with a trip to South Alabama on Friday. Houston takes on UConn in a game that was a trap game for them in their 2015 trip to the Peach Bowl. The Cougars should roll, just wanted to add some intrigue to this matchup. 

UTSA heads to a 5-6 North Texas team that has a coach fighting for his job and a team fighting for bowl eligibility. It could be interesting, but I have faith in the Meeps. App State and Louisiana finish their regular seasons with matchups with Georgia Southern and UL-Monroe respectively.

That’s all I have for you all this week. I hope you all enjoyed and sound off below on your thoughts on any of the games from the past weekend or the ones coming up this week!