MWC Sports Blog

The Mountain West bowl season opens with Wyoming facing Fresno on December 19th in the New Mexico Bowl. This match-up should be very entertaining and high scoring. BYU will face a very athletic Oregon State squad on December 22nd at 8:00. BYU will be playing in their 5th consecutive Las Vegas Bowl. Utah will face the Cal Golden Bears in the Poinsettia Bowl as the Bears will likely be without star RB Jahvid Best. Air Force has a tremendous defense which will have a difficult test against the high flying Cougars of Houston on New Years Eve at the Texas Bowl. The BCS came calling as a battle of undefeated teams will ensue when TCU faces Boise State on January 4th in the Fiesta Bowl. The entire bowl schedule has been released featuring games from December 19 through January 7th.

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 TCU Horned Frogs look advantage of their opportunity to make a name for themselves in 2009 and proved they simply have one of the best defenses in the nation on Saturday as they destroyed BYU in Provo 38-7. The Horned Frogs moved from #8 to #6 in the BCS college football Top 25 with the victory. TCU deserves more credit and should be ranked higher. The Horned Frogs host UNLV on October 31st. Utah moved up two slots to #16 with a 23-16 overtime victory over Air Force. The Utes host Wyoming on October 31st. In the latest 2009 bowl projections from Football-Bowl.com, Utah appears headed to the Poinsettia Bowl and TCU to the Sugar Bowl.

#11 TCU vs #9 Boise State. It was billed as the best non-BCS bowl game of 2008-2009 and even better than the Orange Bowl match-up of Cincinnati vs Virginia Tech, and the 2008 Poinsettia Bowl game lived up to the hype. The Horned Frogs trailed 13-0 early and 13-7 at the half before taking a 17-13 lead in the 4th Quarter and later holding on for a 17-16 victory. It was the TCU defense that was hyped up after allowing more than 14 points just once all season, to #1 Oklahoma, and it was that same defense that made big plays in the 4th Quarter to ensure the TCU victory.

With the win, the Mountain West Conference can claim bragging rights on the WAC as Colorado State already defeated Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl. Now 2-0 against the WAC, the Mountain West continues with Air Force against Houston of Conference USA in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl while Utah wraps up bowl season for the MWC when they face Alabama in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

Just 4:04 remains in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl and the #11 TCU Horned Frogs lead the #9 Boise State Broncos by a score of 17-16. TCU has the ball with a 1st down and 10 on their own 38 yard line with a chance to hold onto the ball and run out the clock. The game has been everything it was billed to be with two BCS-caliber teams hooking up in a close one on ESPN.

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.