Mountain West bowl projections: Does Colorado State have a Fiesta in its future?

It's a little surprising how much the past weekend in Mountain West football action adhered to our expectations.  Colorado State dominated Wyoming in the Border War for a second straight year, while Boise blasted a reeling BYU team.  Utah State looks unkillable regardless of who is under center.  Nevada might be just a tier below the best teams in the conference after struggling in Hawaii.

The Broncos joined the Rams in the land of bowl eligibility, but everybody seems to love the boys in green and gold these days.  How much, you ask?  Well...

For a quick refresher, here is the list of bowls with which the Mountain West is affiliated, along with the potential opponent.  The bowls have an order in which they are allowed to pick teams, and the Las Vegas Bowl picks first.  The Hawaii, New Mexico and New Orleans will share picks three, four and five, while the Potato Bowl picks sixth.  Also note that the conference has secondary ties with the Armed Forces Bowl and Cactus Bowl.

1. Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl - December 20, 2014 - MWC #1 vs. Pac-12 #6
2. San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl - December 23, 2014 - MWC #2 vs. Navy (if eliglble, or at-large)
3. Sheraton Hawaii Bowl - December 24, 2014 - Hawaii (if eligible) or MWC #3-5 vs. C-USA #2-5
4. Gildan New Mexico Bowl - December 20, 2014 - MWC #3-5 vs. C-USA
5. R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl - December 20, 2014 - MWC #3-5 vs. Sun Belt #1
6. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl - December 20, 2014 - MWC #6 vs. MAC #2

Colorado State in a big money bowl?  It depends on quite a few things breaking in the Rams' favor, but Kirk is thinking big here.  Boise State still has the inside track in the Mountain division, for the moment, and both East Carolina and Marshall are higher in the rankings.  And even if CSU keeps winning, as Kirk notes, they will have to win the Mountain West title in order to be eligible.

Little else has changed in the slate from a week ago, but this bowl picture also benefits the Wolf Pack, who became the latest squad to survive a trip to the Big Island and now slot into what would be a wildly entertaining offensive battle.  100 points on the blue turf.  Who wouldn't watch that?

Next up is Jerry Palm of CBS Sports:

It ain't broke, so Palm doesn't seem inclined to fix his relatively static projection.  There's no big money bowl on the line here, only Utah has been exchanged among the prospective opponents, but the MWC does benefit from one of its secondary connections here.  Securing the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy next Saturday will also earn the Air Force Falcons bowl eligibility, and a matchup with an unpredictable Cougars team would be interesting.

Next up, Brant Parsons of the Orlando Sentinel.

A relatively unexciting slate of games, with only a couple of C-USA opponents swapped between Honolulu and Albuquerque here.  What is surprising, though, is that Parsons favors Fresno State over Nevada despite the fact that the Wolf Pack already have five wins under their belt and are likely to be a home favorite when the Bulldogs travel to Reno on November 22.  The West division is still entirely up in the air, but Fresno's persistent presence in the bowl picture week after week is puzzling.

Next, we'll take a look at what ESPN's Brett McMurphy and Mark Schlabach have to say:

McMurphy

Schlabach

These two took their sweet time releasing their latest projection, thanks to the reveal of the playoff's first draft.  There's no clear reason why Schlabach bailed on CSU heading to Vegas, other than changing his mind about Boise's chances to hang onto its division lead.  McMurphy also continues to project the Broncos to have a nice consolation prize with a game against a good Cardinal team.

For at least one week, we have another entry for our cross-section of prognostications.  Here's how the folks at College Sports Madness see the Mountain West shaking out:

Bleh.  Nothing terribly different about this picture.  Perhaps it is just me, but every hypothetical game has little appeal.  Feel free to disagree.

Last but not least are my own bowl picks, which are basically the same as last week.  I tend to change my picture only when circumstances dictate it, and I'm not ready to make the same leap that Kirk does, slotting CSU among the big boys.  Sorry about that, Rams fans, but four weeks is a long time.  Anything can happen.

If you have your own thoughts on these bowl predictions or have a set of your own, make sure to leave them in the comments!

Give us a like on Facebook: