Western Michigan is 13-0, but is it enough for New Year's Six bowl?
The standings are in Western Michigan’s favor. Friday night’s 29-23 win against Ohio moved the Broncos to a Football Bowl Subdivision-best 13-0, as one of just two unbeaten teams in college football, joining Alabama.
Perfection is so infrequently attained in college football that it demands some historical perspective: Western Michigan is just the seventh team in the past six seasons to complete an undefeated regular season, and the first to do so from the Group of Five. Just seven teams in the past decade have concluded an entire season unbeaten.
Yet the rankings are not in the Broncos’ favor. Western Michigan was 17th in the most recent College Football Playoff standings, two spots ahead of Navy, the top-ranked team from the American Athletic Conference — in other words, the best team from what is without question the strongest non-Power Five league.
Western Michigan stays unbeaten with win over Ohio in MAC title game
The Broncos did all they could do. Thirteen games, all wins. Two victories against Big Ten foes in Northwestern and Illinois. Just two wins by fewer than two touchdowns. Western Michigan was given a schedule, rolled through its schedule and stood as perhaps the best team in the history of the Mid-American Conference.
And it may not be enough. That the Midshipmen sit just two spots behind the Broncos in the penultimate Playoff rankings is telling: Navy stands within very close striking distance with two games left to play. Both of those games come against bowl teams, beginning with a fringe top-25 opponent in Temple to decide the American.
Then comes rival Army, which already has clinched a bowl berth. Those wins would give Navy six victories against bowl teams, with another win coming against Notre Dame. The Broncos’ strength of schedule, which the Sagarin ratings have as the 118th-most difficult in the country, includes just three wins against teams with a winning record.
In this case — as in just a select few other instances in the history of college football — perfection may be ignored.
Western Michigan can be upset, but the Broncos should still hold their heads high. The team did everything that was asked of it from a middling schedule, rolling through the opposition at a clip nearly unparalleled across the FBS. Where the Broncos faltered was through no fault of their own.
The big issue is the comparison of the MAC and the American, and in comparing the road Navy would take to 11-2 compared to the Broncos’ run to perfection.
It’s simply not an even comparison: The American is so far ahead of the MAC in 2016 that 11-2 might trump 13-0, particularly when given the Midshipmen’s four potential victories against teams with at least eight wins — Houston, Memphis, Tulsa and, with a win on Saturday, Temple.
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Yet it begs a question: If the Broncos can go 13-0 with two wins against the Big Ten and not be given an access-bowl bid to the Cotton Bowl, will a team from the MAC ever reach a New Year’s Six game?
"To me, it would be a sad state of affairs for Western," said Central Michigan coach John Bonamego. "To do what they've done, if they can't make it into a New Year's (Six) bowl, then basically they're telling us that there's no way anybody (from the MAC) will ever make it. What more can they do? They haven't lost."
It’s a depressing concept for the MAC to consider. If not Western Michigan, then who? But in placing the two teams in such close proximity in this week’s top 25, the selection committee has already set the table for a Navy surge. Perfection, such an infrequent accomplishment in major college football, may not be enough.
Follow Paul Myerberg on Twitter @PaulMyerberg.
