Welcome to championship weekend.
Coastal Carolina and Cincinnati both have steep climbs to stay unbeaten.
We made it -- well, kind of.
The FBS regular season is, basically, kind of, sort of, over. More on that in a minute. It was weird as hell. There was the thrill of victory, the agony of driving across the country on a couple of days notice to lose by a foot to guys who think the mullet is an acceptable haircut, the whatever-the-hell of a team having a ball hit the goalposts four times and not go through and then following it up a few weeks later by driving to West Virginia and knocking off a ranked team.
What happened on the field? Weird. That’s the whole point of football. What happened off the field? Unprecedented. Games were canceled at the last minute, rescheduled at the last minute, went on as scheduled with a new opponent, rescheduled for months later then canceled.
This season started in a little-used stadium in Montgomery, Alabama, with two teams who have yet to play their real seasons, although Central Arkansas managed to piece together a decent slate. It had a weekend in which the Sun Belt dominated the Big XII. All eyes that day were on the first two upsets: Louisiana taking down Iowa State and Arkansas State beating Kansas State. Few paid attention to the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers beating the piss out of Les Miles and Kansas. We’d learn about them soon enough.
Everybody had to adapt to the changing times of this regular season in different ways. Navy tried not tackling in practice, and ended up not tackling against BYU. Turns out not a lot of people tackled against BYU this year.
While the year is likely over for a lot of teams -- mercifully, for folks like UMass and Bowling Green and Louisiana-Monroe -- it isn’t for everyone. Now is when it gets serious. Or maybe it gets canceled. Who the hell knows.
Games That Won’t Happen
Thursday
Louisiana-Monroe at Troy
I was looking forward to this one because I really wanted to see a winless ULM play on conference championship weekend. Alas.
Games That Might Happen
Friday
C-USA Championship Game: UAB at Marshall, 7 p.m. ET, CBS Sports
One of these teams scored against Rice. It isn’t the team that was undefeated much of the year.
MAC Championship Game: Buffalo vs. Ball State in Detroit, 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
Jaret Patterson get 600 yards. For real, though, Everyone should have Buffalo ranked. Buffalo has had every bit as good of a season so far as Ohio State. Both are 5-0, with some wins over garbage teams.
Saturday
Air Force at Army, 3 p.m. ET, CBSSN
Winner gets the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy. And, because this is two service academies, I guess there is a third option: They could cancel it.
Sun Belt Championship Game: Louisiana at Coastal Carolina, 3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
Coastal gets another tough test: Repeating a victory in what was one of the best games played all year. Coastal barely slipped out of Lafayette with a win back in October during a weekend of fantastic Sun Belt football. Now this is the only game in town (until Monday), and there’s a whole lot on the line. The Chants could use another win over a ranked team to boost their standing with the College Football Playoff Comm- ah, who am I kidding? Texas could go winless and get more traction.
Mountain West Championship Game: San Jose State vs. Boise State, 4:15 p.m. ET, FOX
San Jose State hosts this at their home field, New Mexico’s home stadium in Las Vegas. Paint the turf gold, let’s go all out on the weird.
AAC Championship Game: Tulsa at Cincinnati, 8 p.m. ET, ABC
An undefeated team playing in a championship game on national network TV during prime time. It’s a shame the committee probably won’t let the Bearcats into the big dance, no matter the outcome. Tulsa’s got a good defense and a good reputation in big games, so this one could be a dogfight.