American Athletic Conference championship: Players to know, predictions and more

College football fans were so close to a world where both the Mountain West championship game and AAC championship had playoff implications.

Then Tulane lost to unranked Memphis at home in Rivalry Week and killed that dream for good. The Green Wave still get to play for a conference title, but now they’ll do so on the road in West Point against a dynamic Army team. The Black Knights, meanwhile, arguably play a more important game next week in the annual Army-Navy contest.

Tune in to see two strong offenses battle each other in the cold as Army seeks to stop Tulane from winning its second AAC title in three years while winning the Black Knights’ first ever conference championship.

Players To Watch

Army: Bryson Daily, QB

Army and Navy spent the majority of the season running all over the American with variations of the triple-option, led by a pair of awesome quarterbacks. The man under-center for the Black Knights in Daily, who leads the conference in rushing yards (1,354) and rushing touchdowns (25). He can throw it a bit when asked, totaling eight passing touchdowns to just one interception this season, but Daily is more in the mold of your traditional option quarterback – which is to say that he’s damn good at running the ball.

Tulane: Darian Mensah, QB

Mensah leads a Green Wave offense that is sixth in the nation in scoring with 39.1 points per game. The 6-foot-3 redshirt freshman leads the American and is third in FBS in passing yards per attempt with a mark of 9.6, and he also leads the AAC in completion percentage with 65.6. The last time Tulane played a Service Academy, Mensah lit up Navy for two passing touchdowns and a rushing score.

Staff Picks

Opening Line: Tulane -4

Blake Schuster: Army +4.5

Army isn’t getting into the playoff whether it wins or loses this game, and the troops are probably more worried about the Navy game next week. But the home field makes a big difference when a team from the south has to go way north.

Mitchell Northam: Tulane -4.5

Y’all remember how Notre Dame’s games against Army and Navy went pretty similarly? I think we’ll see the same against the Green Wave.

Christian D’Andrea: Army +4.5

TROOPS.

Michelle Martinelli: Army +4.5

I think Tulane will win, if for no other reason than to make up for the Memphis loss. But Army is tricky and should force this one to come down to the end.

Tyler Nettuno: Tulane -4.5

The Memphis game took a lot of wind out of the sails, but this is still a Green Wave team I like a lot. Army has only faced one test tougher than this all year, and we all saw how that went.