MWC bowl berths now coming into focus

We're still a few weeks away from determining postseason bowl slots, but a few things became clearer this past weekend for local teams.

The Cougars' victory over Colorado State made them officially bowl-eligible and puts them one step closer to grabbing a Las Vegas Bowl berth for the second straight year. TCU's convincing victory over New Mexico Saturday afternoon should help Utah's chances of going to San Diego for the Poinsettia Bowl.

Most Ute fans, as well as players and coaches, would rather go to San Diego for a bowl game than Albuquerque or Fort Worth, Texas, for obvious reasons. If the Utes can take care of business at home the next two weeks, they should be on their way to America's Finest City Dec. 20, regardless of what happens in the season finale at BYU.

Meanwhile, the Cougars now have a two-game lead in the MWC race, giving them the inside track for the league's top invitation to the Las Vegas Bowl, which gets the first pick and not necessarily the league champion.

TCU's 37-0 shellacking of New Mexico hurts the Lobos' chances of going to a bowl game. It looked like the Lobos (6-3) had the edge on Utah for the San Diego bowl, since they can't go to the New Mexico Bowl two years in a row.

Also Saturday night, Wyoming (5-4) seriously hurt its chances of going to a bowl when it blew a 21-point lead at San Diego State and lost for the third time in four games.

That leaves BYU, Utah, Air Force and TCU as the most likely schools to grab the four automatic berths for the MWC.

New Mexico, which has looked like a shoo-in for a bowl berth, should finish with at least eight wins with home games remaining against league bottom-dwellers Colorado State and UNLV. But the Lobos and Wyoming may be on the outside looking in, unless each can defeat Utah on the road this month.

BYU has perhaps its three toughest games of the season coming up, but even if the Cougars suffer a league loss or two, they'll still likely end up with a piece of the league title. And the Las Vegas Bowl would love to have the Cougars and their loyal legion of fans again.

The third-year Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego gets the second pick from the MWC to play against Navy, which pretty much wrapped up a bid with its thrilling overtime victory over Notre Dame Saturday. The 5-4 Middies have games left against North Texas, Northern Illinois and Army, three teams with a combined 5-21 record.