Army absolutely stole a win on the road at Tulsa, and it was totally incredible. I mean, don't get me wrong. All three phases matter, and you can absolutely lose a game on special teams if you boot it bad enough, but that's still a tough way to lose if you're the Golden Hurricane.
Meanwhile, Wyoming unexpectedly beat the brakes off of Air Force, and Navy lost at home to North Texas on Homecoming. You hate to see it, but also, man, that North Texas team looks absolutely incredible right now.
UTSA also beat the crap out of a mediocre Tulane team last night, giving us the following American Conference standings:
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| Screenshot via ESPN |
Bottom line, if Army can win this week at Memphis -- a tall task, to be sure -- they have a truly excellent shot at playing in the Conference Championship Game on December 5th. Unfortunately, they'll almost certainly wind up on the road for that game. North Texas visits UTSA on Thursday, November 14, with the winner looking all-but-certain to host the Championship. Those are the conference's two best teams, and UTSA in particular probably doesn't have another loss on its schedule aside from their showdown with North Texas.
Spoiler Alert: UTSA is gonna win that game. Neither team has a particularly good defense, but UTSA has the more well-balanced offense as well as arguably the strongest home field advantage in the American.
All other factors aside, the Alamodome is where American Conference Championship hopes go to die. The only team in college football with a winning record at the Alamodome is...
Jeff Monken's Army Team.
Monken and company are 5-1 against UTSA since the series started in 2020. Their only loss came at home in 2022 when half the team was sick with the flu.
So if Army can win this week, they'll have a very real shot at winning their second conference championship in three years, and interestingly, if college football actually moves to a twenty-four team playoff, that might make it the last American Conference Championship Game that ever gets played. Friends, incredibly, the Black Knights could be your forever American Conference Champions!
The problem with this is that it sets up a night road game a week before Army-Navy, and as we've seen in both 2016 and 2024, that puts the better team at a severe disadvantage ahead of America's Game. That was bad enough in 2024 when Army hosted Tulane and got the win. This time would be even worse because they'd have to travel all the way to Texas and then get home at maybe 6 am, creating a short week against the Mids.
Honestly, friends, I'm ambivalent about this thing. The Mids have a good team this year, but they've played a tough schedule and dropped a few games early that they maybe could've won. FAU got fraud-checked yesterday against Rice, so that loss now looks pretty bad, and UAB is good but a long way from great, so that loss also looks pretty bad. Hell, even the Air Force loss isn't great the way their season is shaking out. Notably, though, all three of those losses came on the road, and Army, too, hasn't looked remotely as good on the road as they have at home. So...
For better or worse, Army's gonna need its best stuff to beat Navy and potentially win the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, and I don't know that playing in the American Conference Championship is conducive to our seeing their best stuff when it really counts. I said after 2024 that you can't throw out the entire season just to win one game, and I still think that, but this team isn't the 2024 team, especially on defense. From where we're standing right now, winning the conference looks like one hell of an uphill climb while winning the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy looks like a challenging but attainable goal. Plus, Army hasn't beaten the Mids in two years, and you don't want to let them get another streak going, especially the year before 90% of the Black Knights' offense graduates.
I would never root against my beloved Black Knights, but the truth is, they bought themselves quite a bit of breathing room with Friday night's win down at Tulsa. They can now afford a tough loss at Memphis, come back to beat Air Force the following Saturday at home, and if they can go on and beat Navy, everyone will be at least as happy as if they win out and somehow make it to the conference championship.
Oh, by the way, Army also has East Carolina coming to town two weeks after Air Force, and if the Pirates currently stand 3-4, 1-2 in the conference, they also match up really, really well against this particular edition of the Black Knights. That game is not remotely a gimme, but the team will be fortunate to play it at home in freaking November, when the squad from ECU is liable to freeze its nuts off.
Anyway. Army needs one more win for bowl eligibility, and I'd be happy to get that against Air Force. That's all I'm saying here. But if they beat Memphis... holy shit!
As of this writing, there's no betting line on this week's game. Massey thinks Memphis wins a close one, 31-27. I guess we'll see.
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