The 2016 Conference USA Championship Game was played on Saturday, December 3, 2016, at

Houchens Industries–L. T. Smith Stadium Houchens Industries–L. T. Smith Stadium at Jimmy Feix Field is a 22,000-seat multi-purpose stadium in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Bowling Green, in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is home to the Western Kentucky University Western Kentucky Hilltoppe ...

Bowling Green, Kentucky Bowling Green is a home rule-class city and the county seat of Warren County, Kentucky, United States. Founded by pioneers in 1798, Bowling Green was the provisional capital of Confederate Kentucky during the American Civil War. As of the 2 ...

, and determined the

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football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

champion of

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

(C-USA). The game featured the West Division champion

Louisiana Tech Louisiana Tech University (Louisiana Tech, La. Tech, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activi ...

visiting the East Division champion

Western Kentucky Hilltoppers The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and Lady Toppers are the athletic teams that represent Western Kentucky University (WKU), located in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the NCAA Division I ranks, competing in the Co ...

(WKU), with the Hilltoppers winning 58–44. The game was broadcast nationally by

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for the 5th consecutive year. The title sponsor was

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. If winner of the C-USA Championship Game is one of highest ranked in the

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of the "Group of Five" conferences, the team could be placed in the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

if not then the Cotton Bowl. The conference champion if not selected would then pick a bowl game of their choosing to attend that has ties to the conference. The 2016 championship game was the 12th game in the championship series. In the

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championship game, also hosted by WKU, the Hilltoppers defeated

Southern Miss The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a public research university with its main campus located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, ma ...

, 45–28. The game proved to be the last for

Jeff Brohm Jeffrey Scott Brohm (born April 24, 1971) is an American football coach and former quarterback, who is the current head football coach of the Louisville Cardinals. Brohm played college football at the University of Louisville for coach Howard S ...

as WKU's head coach; two days later, he was hired to fill the head coaching vacancy at

Purdue Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

Teams

Louisiana Tech

The Bulldogs got off to a rough start at 1-2 before going into conference play with a close 21–20 loss to

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

. Louisiana Tech lost its first conference game against

Middle Tennessee Middle Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that composes roughly the central portion of the state. It is delineated according to state law as 41 of the state's 95 counties. Middle Tennessee contains the s ...

in which the Bulldogs lost the game in the last quarter when the Blue Raiders scored 21 points to win 38–34. The Bulldogs then went undefeated in conference play before losing their regular-season finale 39–24 to

on November 26. They had already clinched the West Division title on November 12 by defeating UTSA, winning the division title for the second time in school history. The previous time the Bulldogs won the West Division was back in

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, which resulted in the Bulldogs losing by 3 points to

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia * Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Islands * Marshall Islands, an i ...

Western Kentucky

WKU opened the season with a conference win over

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, and then went 2–2 in its nonconference schedule, with both losses to

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

teams. WKU then resumed its conference schedule at Louisiana Tech, losing 55–52, before winning its final six regular-season games, finishing C-USA play as East Division co-champions along with

Old Dominion Old Dominion most commonly refers to: *The Old Dominion, a nickname for the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia ** Colony of Virginia *Old Dominion University, a public university in Norfolk, Virginia **Old Dominion Monarchs, the athletic teams represe ...

. Both teams finished 7–1 in C-USA play, with WKU holding the tiebreaker with a 59–24 win over Old Dominion on October 22. Entering the final weekend of conference play, the Hilltoppers could have been beaten out for hosting rights by Louisiana Tech, which entered that weekend 6–1 in the conference and held the head-to-head tiebreaker with its win over WKU. However, the Bulldogs lost on November 26 to Southern Miss, leaving them at 6–2 in C-USA play. WKU hosted the championship for the second consecutive season, making it the first C-USA school to ever do so.

Game summary

WKU hosted the Bulldogs of Louisiana Tech at

at noon

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on December 3, 2016 and was broadcast on

. Louisiana Tech held the overall series record over the Hilltoppers 4–2 before the matchup. The Bulldogs defeated the Hilltoppers in the last meeting back in the beginning of the season on October 6, 55–52.

Scoring summary

Source:

Statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2016 Conference USA Football Championship Game

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 system ...

Conference USA Football Championship Game Louisiana Tech Bulldogs football games Western Kentucky Hilltoppers football games December 2016 sports events in the United States