Army, at 9-2, still not guaranteed bowl game landing spot
Army is ranked for the first time in 22 years and the Cadets would win 11 games for the first time in school history if they beat Navy next week and follow that up with a win in a bowl game.
The catch? Army, ranked No. 23 with a 9-2 record, is not guaranteed a bowl bid.
For all the complaints about too many bowls, this is the second straight season there will be more eligible teams (at least 81) than available bids (78). That has put Army and BYU (6-6), a fellow independent that also has a large following, in the strange position of tracking results from all over the country in recent weeks. Both head into bowl selection Sunday with postseason plans more uncertain than most.
The chances are good Army will get a bid while Miami (Ohio) and Wyoming might not be so lucky.
That it is not a sure thing for the Black Knights, who haven't lost since going to overtime at Oklahoma in September, shows how odd the bowl system can be.
"I hope it doesn't happen," linebacker Cole Christiansen said about Army being shutout. "We're in the Top 25 so I really hope we get to a bowl game. It is kind of tough, but it's not the end of the world if it turns out that way."
Athletic director Boo Corrigan has been working on Army's postseason problem for months since the program entered the season without a contracted bowl partner — and this is no time to be a free agent on the bowl market.
The days when bowl organizers could pick and choose teams to invite are long gone. Now conferences lock up bowl spots for their teams years in advance. All 39 bowl games are basically spoken for. Most current contracts were negotiated in 2012 and 2013 to coincide with the launch
the College Football Playoff in 2014 and run through 2019.
That was a tough time to sell Army football. The Black Knights had one bowl-eligible season (at least six victories) from 1997-2013. As recently as 2015, Army went 2-10. But coach Jeff Monken has orchestrated an impressive turnaround. Army won seven regular-season games in 2015 and made its first bowl appearance since 1996, winning the Heart of Dallas Bowl against North Texas.
Last season, the cadets did even better, beating San Diego State in the Armed Forces Bowl to finish 10-3.
"The good thing for us is the next cycle will be 2020-25 and we can go into that cycle as an independent showing that we have been bowl eligible, showing that we're a viable team to fill that slot," Corrigan said.
Army's situation had Corrigan tracking nine games last week, including Florida Atlantic vs. Charlotte, involving teams trying to become eligible.
"It's a weird dynamic in our profession to want someone not to win," Corrigan said.
BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe can relate to the unlikely scoreboard watching.
"It was nerve wracking," he said.
It also speaks to the role lower-tier bowls now play in college football.
"Bowls have a tremendous impact on the regular season," said Wright Waters, executive director of the Football Bowl Association. "We go into the last week of the season and there were people that were trying to get bowl eligible, and so you have games that are suddenly meaningful that 10 years ago 15 years ago meant nothing because ... they weren't going anywhere."