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Rivalry week: Coaches weigh in on game's matchups
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The Las Vegas Bowl has first pick of available MWC bowl eligible teams. They could pick UNLV if the Rebels become bowl eligible. That would be an unwise choice, but it's entirely up to the Las Vegas Bowl to choose whichever team they want.
The Poinsettia Bowl has second choice. The Armed Forces and New Mexico Bowls, and probably Humanitarian Bowl, follow.
Umm...if BYU beats Utah to create a three way tie for the conference championship, then Utah WON'T be the highest ranked team. BYU will move up, Utah will move down. Chances are that BYU will just Utah in the polls. Utah would probably wind up around 14, and BYU will probably jump up to 11 or 12.
Not that it matters.
San Diego Poinsettia Bowl officials have publiclly stated that "it is time for BYU to come back to San Diego". Jeff Call, in his article today, is not correct. If BYU wins, they could still be a BCS buster. A marquis win over Utah would jump computer rankings for them to 10 or 11. The variable is of course BSU. Hard to guess what the computers will do with wins over Nevada and Fresno, but likely will win out over BYU. One mis-step on the part of BSU and BYU would go to a BCS game. The Marquis match-up would be this: Utah goes BCS busting (no, no, no! Go Cougars!!) and BYU goes to San Diego and plays a 12-0 or 11-1 BSU. THAT game SHOULD be sold out. TCU goes to Vegas.
BYU 31
Utah 27
Several other teams AHEAD of BYU and UTAH must play 2 or more big games before the Bowl season, so one or more MWC teams COULD easily end up in the top 12 even with 1 loss. That would NOT be the case for Boysenberry State. A loss this weekend to Nevada would drop them to around 17-19 in the BCS Standings.
There is NO CHANCE that BALL STATE, a MAC team would move ahead of a MWC team even if undefeated. The MAC is lower than the WAC and the WAC is weak.
I like the fact that Gary Patterson is honest and says of course he is routing for BYU to create a 3 way tie. I do not mind a tie for the championship. If you have 3 teams with one loss and they all beat each other, how can you give it to one over the others? Utah has the obvious advantage by playing the top 2 contenders at home. While BYU has the disadvantage of playing on the road.
BYU would NOT hold any trump cards since the bowl selection tie breaker goes like this.
#1. Head to head. There would be three teams tied with each other TCU, BYU and Utah all having gone 1-1 against each of the other teams. Result Tie.
#2. The next highest common opponent is selected, in this case Air Force (assuming TCU wins). Each team will have beaten that opponent. Result Tie.
#3. You continue going down the list (UNLV,CSU, New Mexico, Wyoming, SDSU) Result Tie.
#4. After all the tie breakers are done if there is still a tie then it's a tie and the LV Bowl can chose from any of the eligible teams.