There are plenty of people in the bowl selection committee that will be rooting against the Navy football team this weekend.
Navy will host Temple in the American Athletic Conference Championship Game on Saturday, and a win would put the Midshipmen in contention for a New Year’s Six Bowl, the Cotton Bowl.
There is one problem, though, because Navy still has another game to play after the final College Football Playoff rankings are released.
“I don’t want to be un-American,” one bowl official told ESPN.com, “but nearly everyone in the bowl industry, quite frankly, is rooting against Navy.” ESPN was also told that a Navy win on Saturday would “paralyze” the bowl system.
From the report:
Delaying the Group of 5’s bid to the Cotton Bowl would affect many bowl games involving Group of 5 teams. Officials would have to delay placing teams in bowls without knowing whether a conference champion could get pulled up to the Cotton Bowl. Additionally, opponents in those bowl games wouldn’t know whom they were playing in addition to the obvious logistic and financial issues involved with waiting another seven days before planning travel, buying tickets and other factors.
“If the committee believes the result of the Army-Navy game could affect Navy’s ranking and therefore its place in the playoff or its selection as the Group of 5 representative, only the pairings that affect Army and Navy would be delayed until after the Army-Navy game,” College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said.
It’s unfortunate, but a Temple win would make the bowl committee’s decision much easier.
But while they will all be rooting for Temple to beat Navy, we will be hear cheering on the Midshipmen in the name of college football chaos.
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