The 2016 American Athletic Conference Football Championship Game, held on Saturday, December 3, 2016, was the second football championship game for that conference. Houston defeated Temple, 24–13, in last year's game.

Teams

Navy

The

Navy Midshipmen The Navy Midshipmen are the athletic teams that represent the United States Naval Academy. The academy sponsors 36 varsity sports teams and 12 club sport teams.American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (AAC), also known as The American, is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States, featuring 13 full member universities and 6 affiliate member universities that compete in t ...

in its West Division. They represented the West Division in the American Athletic Conference Championship Game. Navy hosted the title game. Since Navy and Temple both finished 7–1 in American play and did not play during the regular season, the next tiebreaker used to determine the home team was

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual single-elimination tournament, knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, D ...

(CFP) ranking. Under American Conference rules, if one or both division champions enter the final week of conference play in the CFP rankings, the higher-ranked team will host, provided that it wins its game that week. Since Navy entered its conference finale against SMU at #25 in the CFP rankings, and won that game 75–31, the Midshipmen earned hosting rights. This was Navy's first ever conference championship appearance.

Temple

The

Temple Owls The Temple Owls are the college athletics, athletic teams that represent Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The current athletic director is Arthur Johnson (athletic director), Arthur Johnson. The owl has been the symbol and masco ...

went 7–1 in

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (AAC), also known as The American, is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States, featuring 13 full member universities and 6 affiliate member universities that compete in t ...

play, finishing 1st in the East Division for the second straight year. Due to their win over

South Florida South Florida, sometimes colloquially shortened to SoFlo, is the Regions of the United States#Florida, southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the two others are ...

, they represented the East Division in the American Athletic Conference Championship Game. This was their second straight conference championship appearance. They were attempting to earn their first conference title since 1967, when the Owls were in the

Middle Atlantic Conference The Middle Atlantic Conferences (MAC) is an umbrella organization of three intercollegiate athletic conferences that competes in the NCAA's Division III. The 16 member colleges are in the Mid-Atlantic United States. The organization is divided ...

Game summary

Source:

Statistics

References

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

American Athletic Conference Football Championship Game Navy Midshipmen football games Temple Owls football games American football in Maryland December 2016 sports events in the United States 2016 in sports in Maryland {{Collegefootball-stub