For one week, the CMU football team is rooting for arch rival Western Michigan.

Wednesday’s 31-24 loss to No. 14 ranked Ball State put the Chippewas’ Mid-American Conference West Division championship hopes out of their control.

Now the team will need a WMU win at Ball State on Tuesday. If CMU then takes care of last-place Eastern Michigan on Nov. 28, it will force a three-way 7-1 tie atop the MAC West.

“Yeah, we’re big Bronco fans now,” said coach Butch Jones with a smile. “That’s the thing that’s disappointing – all our kids understand that we controlled our own fate, our own destiny. And when you’re playing in late November, that’s your goal, that’s what you want to do. And we lost that.”

With the loss, CMU is tied with WMU at 6-1 in the MAC, while Ball State leads at 7-0.

In the event of a three-way tie between CMU, BSU and WMU, the tiebreaker would go down to the combined conference record of each team’s three MAC East opponents.

The Chippewas and Broncos share the same MAC East opponents – Buffalo (4-2 MAC), Temple (2-4) and Ohio (1-5).

The Cardinals faced Akron (3-3), Kent State (2-5) and Miami University (1-5).

Should the tiebreaker scenario come into effect, Ball State would be eliminated because its MAC East opponents, at a combined 6-13, currently are one-and-a-half games behind Central and Western’s crossover opponents at 7-12.

CMU, with its 38-28 win on Oct. 18, would win the head-to-head tiebreaker over WMU in that situation and would go to its third consecutive MAC Championship on Dec. 5 at Ford Field.

“We’re not dead,” said junior wide receiver Bryan Anderson. “We don’t own our own destiny now, but things can change and we’re just going to keep fighting.”

The team finishes the season the day after Thanksgiving against Eastern Michigan, which won 48-45 last season at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.

CMU won its last game at Rynearson Stadium in Ypsilanti, 24-17 in overtime, in 2006.

“We can only control what we can control,” Jones said. “We’re going to get back to work and do what we do and be ready to go on Friday.

“We have great respect for Eastern Michigan and our kids will be focused. … We’re going to persevere and we’ll be all right.”

The first step, however, is Western’s Tuesday trip to Muncie, Ind.

A Ball State win would clinch the MAC West for the Cardinals and end CMU’s chances at the MAC’s first three-peat since Marshall’s four-year run from 1997-2000.

All the players can do that day is root for their rival.

“As much as we can, I guess,” said sophomore linebacker Nick Bellore.

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E-mail the author: Brian Manzullo