Western Michigan states its case for Cotton Bowl with MAC title win over Ohio

It wasn’t pretty, but Western Michigan got the job done.

The Broncos’ dream season continued on Friday night with a 29-23 Mid-American Conference title game win over Ohio to remain undefeated and seal the program’s first conference championship since 1988. WMU, now 13-0, has done all it can to earn a spot in the Cotton Bowl as the top Group of Five team in the country, but that decision will ultimately be in the hands of the College Football Playoff selection committee.

WMU played far from its best game against a pesky Ohio squad at Ford Field in Detroit. The Broncos’ stalled deep in Ohio territory several times and Zach Terrell threw two uncharacteristic interceptions to keep the Bobcats within striking distance in the second half.

Highlighted by a 70-yard touchdown catch by star receiver Corey Davis, WMU jumped out to a 23-7 halftime lead — a lead that could have been much bigger. The Broncos then opened the second half with the ball, but Terrell threw just his second interception of the season on the third play of the third quarter.

Ohio capitalized when Greg Windham, in at quarterback for a struggling Quinton Maxwell, hit Jordan Reid for his second touchdown of the game, cutting the lead to 23-13 (missed extra point).

WMU extended its lead to 26-13 later in the third when freshman Butch Hampton nailed his fourth field goal of the game, but Ohio wouldn’t go away. Following the field goal, the Bobcats marched straight down the field in just five plays to score again on a 31-yard connection between Windham and Papi White, cutting the lead to 26-20.

The team traded punts to start the fourth before Ohio cut the lead down to three, 26-23, with a field goal with 7:14 to play. At that point, Western Michigan needed to put together a drive to keep its undefeated season alive. The Broncos had controlled the time of possession for much of the night. That ball control seemed to pay off as Jamuari Bogan bullied his way into Ohio territory on the ground and Terrell hit Davis for a few nice gains.

After taking nearly six minutes off the clock, the drive finally stalled, and Hampton came on for his fifth field goal of the game, a MAC Championship Game record.

Still, down just six, Ohio had a shot. Windham, who hadn’t played in a game since Oct. 27, quickly completed three passes to get his team into WMU territory. Things were looking good for the Bobcats at the WMU 37, until Windham was intercepted by WMU’s Robert Spillane to seal the win.

Whether P.J. Fleck and his Broncos row their boat to the Cotton Bowl remains to be seen. WMU’s weak MAC schedule has done it no favors, and barely scraping by a four-loss (now five) team like Ohio could open the door for an AAC champion, mainly Navy, to earn the top Group of Five ranking. The Midshipmen were ranked 19th in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings, two spots behind No. 17 WMU. If Navy wins the American Athletic Conference title game Saturday over a Temple team that hasn’t lost in nearly two months, the committee will certainly have some things to think about.

The annual Army-Navy game can put a wrench in the bowl matchups as well. If Navy beats Temple, CFP executive director Bill Hancock told ESPN.com the committee could delay the reveal of the Cotton Bowl matchup until after Navy plays Army (6-5) on Dec. 10. That would delay the announcements of a number of other bowl matchups.

But would the committee really go with a two-loss Navy team over undefeated Western Michigan? Fleck, who resurrected the program from 1-11 in 2013 to 13-0 in 2016 and is now a hot head-coaching candidate, doesn’t think so.

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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!

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