MWC Sports Blog

Texas Christian moved up 2 slots to #4 in the BCS Top 25 rankings and have their sites set on a National Championship appearance. The Horned Frogs dominated San Diego State 55-12 and will host #16 Utah on the 14th. The game not only will go along way in deciding the conference but has national implications as well. Utah fell 2 slots with their 45-14 victory over New Mexico. BYU reappeared at #22 with their dominating performance against Wyoming, 52-0. The Cougars should have an easy time of it when they travel to New Mexico on the 14th.

The Horned Frogs of TCU dominated UNLV 41-0, but despite their impressive resume TCU remains at #6. TCU will travel to San Diego State on November 7th. Utah moved up 2 slots to #14 with their 22-10 victory over Wyoming. The Utes will have an easy time when they host New Mexico on November 7th. With Utah poised for a Poinsettia Bowl berth, BYU seems headed to yet another Las Vegas Bowl in the latest 2009-2010 bowl predictions.

The bowl season kicked off on Saturday and the Mountain West Conference began as they would have hope. Colorado State took on Fresno State of the WAC and was able to handle the Bulldogs 40-35. After this nice start and somewhat surprising win, BYU was in action in the Las Vegas Bowl for the 4th season in a row. This time around BYU faced off with Mike Stoops’ much-improved Arizona Wildcats squad. After two straight wins in this bowl game BYU (10-3) did not have the defense to stop Arizona as the Wildcats got the win 31-21. After the dust settled on day one of bowl season the Mountain West was 1-1 with three bowl games remaining in this banner 2008 year for the MWC. Those three games include TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl, Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl and Utah in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

The Mountain West Conference had quite an impressive season knocking off BCS Automatic Qualifiers and sending three teams into the Top 15 in the nation. Now five MWC teams will participate in bowl games, from 6-6 Colorado State to BCS-bowl bound #6 Utah. Let’s take a look at each of the five bowl teams from the MWC and their bowl game match-ups.
- Colorado State - 6-6 - Colorado State will face Fresno State of the WAC in the New Mexico Bowl on December 20th - 2008 New Mexico Bowl preview
- Air Force - 8-4 - The Falcons of Air Force will face Houston in the Armed Forces Bowl on New Year’s Eve - 2008 Armed Forces Bowl preview
- BYU - 10-2 - The Cougars head to Vegas to play in the Las Vegas Bowl for the 4th staright season. After a loss to Cal in the 2005 Las Vegas Bowl, BYU has beaten Oregon and UCLA in the past two years and will face Arizona on December 20th. - 2008 Las Vegas Bowl preview
- TCU - 10-2 - As the #12 team in the nation, TCU has one of the best bowl match-ups on paper this season as they face #9 Boise State in the Poinsettia Bowl. This match-up gives the Mountain West Conference exactly what they want, they’re #2 team against the WAC’s #1 team with a chance to ruin the Broncos’ undefeated season. Boise State and TCU face off on December 23rd @ 8 pm on ESPN. - 2008 Poinsettia Bowl preview
- Utah - 12-0 - The Utes began their season with an “upset” of Michigan in The Big House and ended their season heading to a BCS Bowl game to face Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. At 12-0, Utah looks for their second win in a BCS bowl game in school history after crushing Pitt just a few short years ago. - 2008-2009 Sugar Bowl preview

Four bowl games have been played involving Mountain West Conference teams and four wins are in the books for the MWC. College Sports Fans successfully picked 3 of the 4 games in their 2007-2008 college bowl game peviews, so let’s take a look at each game to date.

On December 22nd, the UCLA Bruins will look to once again defeat the BYU Cougars in the Las Vegas Bowl. The two teams met up with the Bruins winning 27-17 despite BYU’s offense being the statistical winners. BYU outgained UCLA by 199 yards in that game, but started the season slow before finishing the MWC schedule 8-0 and 10-2 overall. UCLA went 6-6 on the season resulting in the firing of coach Karl Dorrell and looks to finish the season above .500. For a complete preview be sure to check out the 2007 Las Vegas Bowl preview at College Sports Fans.

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