For a day without a lot of compelling matchups, Week 12 at least set us up for a big finish in week 13. The non-BCS world has 3 championships and 4 divisions decided during the regular season, and yesterday 2 conferences and one division were locked in, and leaving several showdowns for this coming week. First up, congratulations are in order:
Mountain West Conference Champions: TCU. The media are reporting that TCU has clinched a share of the championship, which is technically true, but they’ve already beaten anyone who might “share” it with them.
Sun Belt Conference Champions: Troy. After a shaky start and a pretty solid beating at Arkansas last week, Troy has put that behind them and advanced to 7-0 in conference. While they could also share it, they hold tiebreakers over Middle Tennessee State as well.
MAC West Division Champions: Central Michigan. Northern Illinois lost to Ohio yesterday, dealing their second loss and handing the division crown to CMU, who had already won their 7th game. NIU and CMU play this Friday, but the result is relatively meaningless now.
As I mentioned, we have a few direct showdowns to determine the other winners:
Western Athletic Conference “Championship Game”: Friday, November 27, 10 PM- Nevada at Boise State. Nevada is 7-0 in the league, Boise is 6-0 and does have a game with New Mexico state the next week, but if BSU wins they’ll clinch anyway with the tiebreaker. Of course, Nevada stands to ruin the Broncos’ perfect seasons and create havoc in the WAC bowl picture too.
Conference USA East Division “Championship Game”: Saturday, November 28, 1 PM- Southern Miss at East Carolina. ECU is 6-1 in the league, USM 5-2, so the winner of this game takes the division, by head-to-head tiebreaker in USM’s case. If ECU wins, they host the conference championship game a week later. It’s less clear what happens if USM wins, since both division winners will be at 6-2, but I’ll work it out and update this week.
MAC EAST Division “Championship Game”: Friday, November 27, 11 AM- Temple at Ohio. Ohio’s win at NIU last week keeps them alive at 6-1 in the league as 7-0 Temple comes to town, riding a remarkable hot streak. Winner heads to Detroit.
Thus, the only division left without a one game final is Conference USA West. Houston already beat SMU, so they hold the tiebreaker, and both teams are at 5-2 in the league. If Houston beats Rice (Saturday, 8 PM) then the division is theirs. SMU plays Tulane earlier (3 PM), so if they win that and Houston stumbles to the suddenly 2 game winning Rice, then SMU will be in the title game.