Bowls: There are a lot of them. As a public service, the Doc is here to rank each game according to five crucial criteria, with help from the patron saint of the game in question. Today: The MAACO Las Vegas Bowl! Teams. Boise State Broncos (11-1) vs. Utah Utes (10-2).
Particulars. Dec. 22 (Today), 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: Boise State (-17)
Aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer, film director, philanthropist and all-purpose wacko Howard Hughes, who checked into the Desert Inn for a 10-day stay on Thanksgiving Day 1966 and refused to leave for over a year, eventually buying the hotel for twice its estimated value and converting the top two floors into the center of his Vegas empire and his personal residence. From there, he bought a half-dozen local hotel/casinos, including the Silver Slipper, in order to reposition a flashing neon slipper that kept him awake at night.
• Locale. Sam Boyd Stadium a) Is located on the very edge of the valley, a stone's throw from the desert and well out of view of the Strip; b) Has hosted off-brand professional teams known as the "Posse" and the "Outlaws"; c) Currently hosts one of the United States Hot Rod Association's largest annual monster truck rallies; and d) Was once known as the Silver Bowl. Last year, 40 mph winds gusting through the open end zone wreaked havoc, including a 6-yard punt by Oregon State. Tonight's forecast is for a downpour. The Jerrydome, it ain't. We're talking survival of the fittest, man.
• Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl
• Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl
• Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl
• Tradition. The Las Vegas Bowl began in 1992 as an interesting champion-on-champion clash between the best of the MAC and the now-defunct Big West, which included Toledo finishing off an unbeaten season in the first overtime game in NCAA history in 1995. Unfortunately, the game abandoned that niche two years later for more generic pairings of assorted Western also-rans, the most notable of which was probably an obscure USC team that fell to Utah, 10-6, to finish 6-6 under first-year head coach Pete Carroll in 2001. And even that was only notable in retrospect, in the wake of the Trojans' rise into the kind of juggernaut that wouldn't be caught dead in the Las Vegas Bowl again for the next decade.
Most recently, it's been the BYU Bowl. Before this year, the Cougars made five straight holiday trips to Vegas to take on five different Pac-10 also-rans, winning three of the last four to cap 10-win, top-25 seasons. Fortunately, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham was available this year to fill the role of "uncomfortable Mormon" at the annual showgirl shoot.
• Swag. This being Las Vegas, and the title sponsor being an auto body repair chain, the unspecified contents of the "gift suite" handed out to players could conceivably include just about anything: Jewelry, a video slot machine, gift certificates for an insane paint job, a moderately attractive but slightly unhinged divorcée, a bachelor's degree from UNLV, 10 free Elvis impersonations at various social events, a replica Sphinx, etc. It could also be, like, $25 worth of poker chips and half a pack of cigarettes. The only limit is your imagination, in either direction.
• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. Nobody's broken out the fatigues yet, but things started off chippy enough over the weekend, when players got into a shoving match Sunday that resulted in "some dishes broken" and Utah players moving to a different level of the Hard Rock Café to avoid a full-on brawl. Then Utah receiver DeVonte Christopher upped the ante on his Twitter feed:
Christopher, a Canyon Springs High School graduate, posted on Twitter: "I can't wait to get out here wit these Boise State or should I say Girlse State they a bunch of cheerleaders…lol."
"LOL," for those who don't know, is Internet shorthand for "laugh out loud."
Thank you, Las Vegas Review-Journal, for the clarification. And thank you, DeVonte Christopher, for likely getting Utah players banned from Twitter for the foreseeable future.
• This year's match-up. Utah-Boise joins Florida State-South Carolina in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl as the only clash of ranked teams prior to New Year's Day, and matches the Sugar and Orange bowls for the highest combined winning percentage between both teams (.875) of any game this side of the Rose Bowl and BCS Championship Game. Both teams were ranked in the top 10 at Halloween, when Utah-Boise State would have had the ring of a BCS game, and it's still a gem for Dec. 22.
The other side of the coin, as the gaping point spread indicates, is that Utah has given no indication it can hang for four quarters with an outfit of Boise State's caliber. The Broncos rank in the top six nationally in almost every conceivable category – passing offense, pass efficiency, total offense, scoring offense, rushing defense, pass defense, pass efficiency defense, total defense, scoring defense, sacks, sacks allowed, angry blog comments generated, you name it. They've also beaten a pair of currently ranked teams, Virginia Tech and Hawaii, the latter by 35 points. There's a reason this team was considered a serious national contender right to the end.
The Utes, on the other hand, were run out of their own stadium in their only game against a ranked team (a 47-7 trouncing at the hands of TCU), and consistently struggled against other respectable opposition: They were blown out at Notre Dame a week after the TCU debacle, and barely escaped against fellow bowlers Pittsburgh (27-24 in overtime), Air Force (28-23), San Diego State (38-34) and BYU (17-16, with the help of a controversial call and a blocked field goal on the last play). With starting quarterback Jordan Wynn likely out with a bum shoulder, it may take Utah's best game of the season just to keep Boise from covering the spread.
• Star power. Kellen Moore and Titus Young were easily one of the most prolific quarterback-receiver connections in the nation, hooking up 65 times for 1,151 yards, nine touchdowns and the would-be season-saving bomb at Nevada – and that's just a hair down from their 2009 production. Young and receiving mate Austin Pettis are both off to the draft after tonight, leaving Boise with at least 415 catches, 5,690 yards and 63 touchdowns to their name over four years, and Moore with a brand new set of targets to break in next fall as a senior.
Final rating: out of five.
To the extent Utah can keep it close, Vegas is an appropriate setting for a match-up that looks like an oasis amid a desert of mediocrity. At the very least, it's a great lead-in to the holiday weekend.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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