Bowl forecast: Utah, BYU football teams are top choices for Poinsettia and Vegas bowls

BYU and Utah football players, coaches and fans can plan on their seasons being finished before Christmas this year.

With TCU all but certain to be playing in one of the five BCS bowls in early January, the Cougars and Utes will be filling the Mountain West Conference's first two bowl choices, the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl and the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, which will be played on Dec. 22 and Dec. 23, respectively.

Both Las Vegas Bowl executive director Tina Kunzer-Murphy and Poinsettia Bowl executive director Bruce Binkowski confirmed Monday that those are the only two schools their bowls are looking at to fill the MWC's spots.

The Las Vegas Bowl gets first choice, but which bowl each school will be playing in won't necessarily be determined in Provo Saturday and an announcement may not come until Dec. 6, after the BCS bowls are determined.

One local sportscaster said this weekend that the winner of the BYU-Utah game will be going to the Las Vegas Bowl, while rumors have been floating around Salt Lake that short of a blowout loss, the Utes will be headed to Las Vegas this year for the first time in eight years.

However, Kunzer-Murphy, whose bowl has the first choice out of the MWC, says nothing has been decided and that it will be up to a 32-person committee to vote on the participating teams. The committee is meeting later this week to discuss the situation and will make a decision after this week's game.

"We're going to look at it pretty carefully," Kunzer-Murphy said.

When asked specifically if the Las Vegas Bowl could take the loser of Saturday's game, Kunzer-Murphy said, "Anything can happen. We're going to select based on what's best for the matchup and what's best for the city."

"Utah has not been in our game for a long time and there is a mindset that a fresh team is exciting," she continued. "We like BYU and they've been a great partner over the years. We feel we have great options."

She didn't want to leave out TCU, either, saying, "if something happens and they come back to us, that would be great also."

That "something" would be a loss at home to 1-10 New Mexico Saturday. Assuming TCU does beat New Mexico to stay unbeaten, the Horned Frogs are likely headed to a BCS bowl unless Boise State moves ahead of them in the BCS standings.

However, MWC associate commissioner Javan Hedlund said the bowl announcements will all have to be put on hold until after the final BCS standings are revealed on Dec. 6 in case Boise State was to leapfrog TCU and get the "automatic" non-BCS berth. However, he said if Boise State were to lose to Nevada this week, then perhaps the other MWC bowl announcements could be made this weekend.