New Mexico Bowl Notes

Categories: News
      Date: Sep 10, 2009
     Title: New Mexico Bowl Notes - Week 2

After week 1 some college football experts are already making their postseason predictions. UNLV is the only team to be selected more than once from the Mountain West Conference while Louisiana Tech was picked three times. Don't forget, tickets for the fourth annual New Mexico Bowl are on sale NOW!

NEW MEXICO BOWL NOTES - WEEK 2 (Sept. 12)

New Mexico Bowl Notes - Week 2 in PDF Format

BOWL PREDICTIONS: After week 1 some college football experts are already making their postseason predictions. UNLV is the only team to be selected more than once from the Mountain West Conference while Louisiana Tech was picked three times. Here is what is selected for the 2009 New Mexico Bowl:
    CollegeBowlProjections.com: Fresno State (WAC) vs. Utah (MWC)
    College Football News/Fox Sports: Louisiana Tech (WAC) vs. Cincinnati (*No MWC team available)
    CBS Sportsline: Louisiana Tech (WAC) vs. UNLV (MWC)
    ESPN (Mark Schlabach’s pick): Louisiana Tech (WAC) vs. Air Force (MWC)
    ESPN (Bruce Feldman’s pick): Nevada (WAC) vs. Colorado State (MWC)
    Sports Illustrated: Utah State (WAC) vs. UNLV (MWC)

BOWL TICKETS ON SALE NOW: Tickets for the fourth annual New Mexico Bowl are on sale to the general public today. Prices remain the same as the first three bowl games, with Premium sideline seats available for $30 and North end zone seats for $23. Groups of 20 or more can purchase tickets for $25 each.
    Fans have three convenient ways to purchase tickets. They are available online at www.newmexicobowl.com, at the UNM ticket office located on the Northwest corner of Avenida Cesar Chavez and University Boulevard, or by calling the Lobo Ticket Office at (505) 925-LOBO or the Bowl office at (505) 925-5999.
    The game, featuring a representative from the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences, will be played on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 2:30 p.m. MT at University Stadium on the University of New Mexico campus and will be televised nationally on ESPN and ESPN-HD.

FOLLOW THE NEW MEXICO BOWL ON TWITTER: The New Mexico Bowl is now using Twitter to keep fans up-to-date with the latest information. By becoming a follower of our Twitter page, you will have the opportunity to receive breaking news, score updates, and special announcements. Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and can also be received on cell phones who have signed up to receive them. Sign up for a Twitter account, registration is free, at Twitter.com.

TALE OF THE TURNSTILES: The heads have been counted and in the opening week of collegiate football over 750,000 fans supported the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences. Utah had the highest home attendance for the MWC at 45,333 while Fresno State welcomed the most fans for the WAC, seating 37,267. On the road, BYU played in front of the most fans as 75,437 piled into Cowboys Stadium in Dallas to watch the Cougars take on Oklahoma. The WAC has three teams (Louisiana Tech, Nevada and San Jose State) in action before crowds over 80,000 with SJSU seeing the highest at 84,325 as they visited USC. For a complete breakdown of each team’s attendance figures, see the notes in PDF format at the top of the page.

NATIONAL RANKINGS: Boise State, the WAC’s lone representative in the AP and USA Today rankings, jumped from 14th and 16th to 12th and 11th, respectively. BSU is the highest ranked team from a BCS non-automatic qualifying conference in the coaches’ poll. The Broncos’ finished the 2008 season ranked ninth in both polls, their highest regular season showing ever. Boise State has been ranked in the top 25 at least once in each of the last eight seasons. At least one team from the WAC has been in the polls every week since Sept. 17, 2006 (48 consecutive polls).
    The Mountain West Conference has three teams ranked among the top 25 in the national polls for the ninth straight week, dating back to last season. BYU shot up the polls with its upset of then third-ranked Oklahoma, coming in at Nos. 9 and 12, respectively, making them the highest-ranked non-BCS automatic qualifying team in the AP Poll. Last week the Cougars were ranked 20th and 24th, respectively. TCU, which has not started its season yet, comes in at No. 16 in both polls. Utah follows, placing 17th in both polls. Colorado State, which beat Colorado in Boulder, received a vote in the USA Today Coaches Poll.
    The Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences are receiving more respect each year from the national media. The Associated Press and USA Today preseason polls put four non-BCS teams (Boise State, BYU, TCU and Utah) in the top 25 for the first time. Boise State’s No. 14 AP poll ranking was also the highest preseason nod for a non-BCS team since the Bowl Championship Series was formed. Since 2003, at least one non-BCS team has placed in the top 15 of the final Associated Press poll or USA Today coaches’ poll in every season. On three occasions -- No. 4 Utah in 2004, No. 5 Boise State in 2006 and No. 2 Utah in 2008 -- a non-BCS team has cracked the final poll top five. On average, the highest-ranked non-BCS team at season’s end has been ranked 12 spots better than the highest-ranked non-BCS team in either preseason poll.

MWC AND WAC REGULAR SEASON WAR: Utah (MWC) and Utah State (WAC) kicked off the battle of the conferences last weekend with the Utes nabbing the W. There are eight more regular season match-ups between MWC and WAC members. This week Utah again plays the WAC, taking on San Jose State in San Jose. Next week there are three games as Idaho hosts San Diego State, Nevada travels to Colorado State and Hawai`i visits the mainland to play at UNLV. Week 4 sees in-state rivals New Mexico State take on New Mexico at University Stadium. The regular season series ends in week 5 with Colorado State at Idaho, New Mexico State at San Diego State and UNLV at Nevada.
    The Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences have gone head-to-head the last three years in the New Mexico Bowl with the MWC holding a 2-1 advantage thanks to Colorado State’s come-from-behind win over Fresno State last year. Last year the MWC also came away with a 5-2 edge in the regular season series. In the breakdown, the MWC outscored the WAC 236-166. Five MWC teams played against four different WAC teams. Utah State (WAC) played the most contests, taking on UNLV (L, 27-17 on Aug. 30), Utah (L, 58-10 on Sept. 13) and BYU (L, 34-14 on Oct. 3). San Diego State and UNLV played the most WAC teams for the MWC, both going 1-1. The Aztecs played San Jose State on Sept. 13, falling 35-10, and Idaho (W, 45-17) on Sept. 27. UNLV, besides facing Utah State to start the 2008 season, also played Nevada in the annual Fremont Cannon game, falling 49-27.

BOWL LINE-UP: The WAC is affiliated with three bowl games this season. WAC teams will play in the New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque, N.M. against a Mountain West opponent, the Sheraton Hawai‘i Bowl in Honolulu against a Conference USA opponent and in the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho versus another team from the Mountain West. The WAC also has an agreement for this season with the San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl that if the Pac-10 cannot fill its contracted spot in the bowl game, then the WAC will provide a team. The opponent is also a team from the Mountain West.
    The Mountain West Conference has agreements to send five teams to bowl games in 2009. Since 1999, the MWC has posted a 21-15 bowl record and has twice captured the Bowl Challenge Cup. Since the league’s inception, eight of the nine MWC members have participated in and won a bowl game. Entering the 2009 season, Utah owns the nation’s longest active bowl win streak with eight consecutive victories. Unless an MWC team qualifies for a BCS bowl game, the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas has the first selection of MWC teams, followed by the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettita Bowl with the second selection. The Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl and New Mexico Bowls have the third and fourth selections but in no particular order. The Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl will selected fifth.

TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL NATIONAL TEAM OF THE WEEK: #24/20 BYU’s 14-13 win over #3 Oklahoma in Arlington, Texas, earned the Cougars the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl National Team of the Week by the FWAA for games of the weekend of Sept. 5. The victory over the Sooners marked the highest-ranked opponent an MWC team has defeated since its inception in 1999. The previous best win against a highly-ranked team was Utah’s victory over 4th-ranked Alabama (31-17) in the 2009 Allstate Sugar bowl. In a regular-season match-up, TCU defeated Oklahoma (#5 in USA Today and #7 in AP poll), 17-10, in Norman, Okla., in 2005. The last time BYU beat a non-conference opponent ranked in the Top 10 was on Sept. 8, 1990, when the Cougars defeated No. 1 Miami, 28-21. The win also mark the first BYU victory over a ranked nonconference team since it defeated No. 14 Arizona State, 26-6, on Sept. 12, 1998. The win against Oklahoma snapped a 12-game losing streak to ranked non-conference opponents.

NATION’S LONGEST ACTIVE WIN STREAK: No. 17/17 Utah defeated Utah State in last week’s season opener, extending the nation’s longest active win streak to 15 games. Dating back to the 2007 Poinsettia Bowl victory over Navy, the Utes have won 15 consecutive games, and 22 of their last 23 contests.

THIS WEEK’S PREVIEWS: All the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conference games are slated for Saturday. The MWC has all nine teams on the field in non-conference play, including four game against BCS automatic-qualifying teams. The WAC, which had all of its members in action last week, have just seven games on tap this weekend with Nevada and Utah State having byes. For a brief breakdowns of each game slated for this week, see the notes in PDF format at the top of the page.

--NEW MEXICO BOWL--