Starting in 2006, Mountain West Conference football teams will be playing for a free trip to Las Vegas.
This season, however, it’s undecided whether the MWC champion goes to the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 22 or returns one last time to the Liberty Bowl on New Year’s Eve.
The league announced Thursday a four- year extension with the Las Vegas Bowl, sending the first selection to Las Vegas against a Pac-10 team starting next year. The bowl will increase its annual payment from the current $575,000 to $1 million.
The Liberty Bowl will be an option this season only if the league has four bowl-eligible teams. MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said the league would honor contracts with the Las Vegas Bowl, San Francisco Emerald Bowl and new Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego before sending a team to Memphis, Tenn. This is the final year for the MWC to send a team to San Francisco. The Fort Worth Bowl joins the lineup next season.
If the league does have four bowl-eligible teams, the Liberty could get the champion, or have to settle for another team. Those details are being negotiated.
“The bowl slot is going to remain open through the season. It depends on how many bowl-eligible teams we have,” Thompson said Thursday at the Front Range Kickoff Luncheon at the Tech Center Marriott. “We’re just going to have to play it out.”
Thompson said the Las Vegas Bowl will have a one-time exemption in the four-year contract to invite hometown UNLV if the Rebels don’t win the MWC title. That would open the way for the Fort Worth Bowl to take the champion, possibly playing the Conference USA champion.
Thompson also said a BCS exemption has been written into all new bowl contracts. Last year the MWC had to negotiate its way out of sending champion Utah to the Liberty Bowl when the Utes qualified for the Fiesta Bowl. Thompson said when a fifth BCS bowl is in place in 2006, he anticipates more frequent MWC appearances in the top tier.
The Las Vegas Bowl would not match the estimated $1.4 million Liberty Bowl payout or the more attractive date. However, unlike San Francisco, Memphis and many other bowl sites, inclement weather is usually not an issue in Las Vegas and travel is more convenient for MWC fans at all member schools, except newcomer TCU.
Thompson said the preference of MWC fans and the Pac-10 opponent made the Las Vegas Bowl the choice for where the league will send its champion. Wyoming sent about 8,000 fans to Las Vegas last December.
“We couldn’t have had a better experience than Las Vegas,” Wyoming coach Joe Glenn said. “I just hope we’re bowl-eligible. I’d love to go to any of them.”
Said Colorado State coach Sonny Lubick: “It’s fine with me as long as we go somewhere.”
Footnotes
Quarterbacks from all three Front Range MWC schools are among the 33 names on the Davey O’Brien watch list for the nation’s top quarterback. Air Force sophomore Shaun Carney, CSU senior Justin Holland and Wyoming senior Corey Bramlet made the list. …
Lubick said he is considering scaling back plans for a 100-play scrimmage Saturday morning because of mounting injuries. Offensive guard Brandon Alconcel recently tweaked a knee, and defensive tackle Delroy Parke will undergo X-rays on his hand. …
As usual, Glenn won the battle of the coaches/comedians at the luncheon. He related a fictional conversation about what to do with Wyoming’s recent $5 million windfall from a donor. Glenn suggested opening a prep school in Muddy Gap, Wyo., where players could be taught the Wyoming system and it wouldn’t count against eligibility. The barb was aimed at the Air Force Prep School, which feeds the academy. …
Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry talked the longest but neglected to mention his annual guarantee about CSU beating Colorado in the teams’ opener.
Staff writer Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
