Frogs to Smell the Roses, Vegas Gets Top Match-Up 
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Facebookby Mark Knudson
Dec. 5th, 2010
For the first time in conference history, the Mountain West is sending a team to the Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio on January 1st. It’s the fourth time in the past seven seasons that a MWC team has crashed the Bowl Championship Series, but none of the other games have been “The Granddaddy of Them All.” For MWC Champion TCU, this is big. Really big.
Okay, it’s not that highly coveted shot at the national championship. The Frogs missed out on that by an eyelash when both Auburn and Oregon – teams from BCS conferences – finished the season undefeated. Those two will play each other in the BCS title game. But the Rose Bowl is a pretty nifty consolation prize.
There’s was no question that being one of only three unblemished squads left standing at the end of the season was going to put TCU into the BCS for the second straight season. But unlike last season, when the Frogs were matched with Boise State as something of an afterthought in the Fiesta Bowl, this time TCU gets to take advantage of a seldom used rule in the BCS that forces the most famous Bowl game of them all to take a qualified “non automatic qualifier” for their game OVER a Pac 10 team if the Pac 10 Champ ends up in the national title game. TCU fits that profile. (So some thanks should be directed to Pac 10 Champ Oregon for lending an assist as well.)
I’m sure this isn’t sitting too well with the Rose Bowl organizers (or Gordon Gee) right about now. One-loss Stanford is sitting right behind the Frogs in the BCS standings, having lost only to Oregon during an outstanding season. Most years, the Rose Bowl would get their dream match up of the #4 Cardinal against Big Ten champion, #5 Wisconsin. Not this year.
This year, things came up Roses for the undefeated Frogs…also due in no small part to Boise State’s late season loss to Nevada. Had the Broncos been able to convert a glorified extra point in the waning seconds against Wolfpack, won the WAC and stayed undefeated, they would have likely maintained their #3 ranking and been making the travel plans for Pasadena. Where that would have left the Horned Frogs is anyone’s guess. But none of that matters now. What matters is that the Frogs are Rose Bowl bound, where they will meet the high scoring Badgers on the biggest of stages on New Year’s Day.
The MWC got another marquee match-up for its second best team. In an intriguing twist, conference runner-up #21 Utah, a program leaving the MWC after this school year, will face ninth-ranked Boise State – a school entering the conference next fall – in the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl. For awhile it was looking like the Broncos, despite being a top ten team, might slide all the way down to the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, while the Utes were looking at matching up with a team from the Mid America Conference in Vegas. That wasn’t something either school (or the bowl) wanted. Instead, a great deal was cut to send the Broncos, runner up in the WAC, to meet the Utes before the teams swap places on next fall’s conference football schedules. It will be the seventh meeting between the schools, with Boise having won the last three. Utah will be looking to win its 10th straight bowl game and redeem themselves for a late season swoon that knocked them out of the top ten.
The San Diego State Aztecs haven’t been to a bowl game in 12 years, and after going 8-4 and finishing third in the conference, Brady Hoke’s troops will get to…stay at home for bowl season. SDSU will meet Navy in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl on their home field at Qualcomm Stadium on December 23rd. The two schools have met just twice before, with the Aztecs winning both games. It will be Navy’s fifth consecutive bowl game, and their third trip to the Poinsettia Bowl.
"We are excited to be playing a bowl game here in San Diego in front of our great students, fans and community," SDSU head coach Brady Hoke said in a statement. "We enjoy playing in Aztec Warrior Stadium and playing in the Poinsettia Bowl will give us another opportunity to do that. It is great to play a 13th game and our senior class, with their leadership, has put us in this position.
"We are playing a great opponent in Navy. They are a well-coached, disciplined team and play a very physical style of football."
Being at home is no guarantee of a home field crowd, however. San Diego is a “Navy” town…local Navy bases are sure to send lots of uniformed personnel to the game.
After playing in the Armed Forces Bowl for three straight season, Air Force gets a change of venue when the Falcons meet Georgia Tech in the December 27th AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl in Shreveport. If you like option football, this is the game for you. It will feature the top two rushing offenses in the nation running very similar attacks.
Tech coach Paul Johnson, a triple option guru, spent six seasons at Navy – so there will be very few surprises when he lines his team up against Air Force. It wasn’t the year the 6-6 Yellow Jackets thought they’d have, but they remain a formidable foe for Troy Calhoun’s 8-4 Falcons. Tech struggled on defense this season, and lost veteran quarterback Josh Nesbitt to injury during the second half of the season.
And in another set of unusual circumstance for a bowl game, the BYU Cougars, also departing the MWC after this season, get to face an old WAC foe in UTEP when they kick off the bowl season in MWC country the New Mexico Bowl December 18th in Albuquerque. It’s the Cougars 29th bowl game, but their first time to the NM bowl (if not the stadium). BYU comes in having won five of their final seven games to reach a bowl game, while the Miners started fast, but faded down the stretch, losing five of their final six games. The two teams last played in 1998, and BYU has won 25 of the past 27 games between the former conference rivals.
“We are anxious to participate in the New Mexico Bowl and to be playing in the opening bowl game of the year,” said BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall. “We look forward to the opportunity to continue to improve our team and build for the future.”
