College football: MWC's bowl situation still unclear

The Utah-BYU matchup won't decide a conference title, undefeated TCU has claimed that crown, but the game could at least determine which team goes to the Las Vegas Bowl -- possibly anyway.

The prevailing thought is the winner of the Utah-BYU game will be selected to the Las Vegas Bowl to play the Pac-10's fifth-place team and the loser would go to the Poinsettia Bowl and play the Pac-10's sixth-place team, assuming TCU beats New Mexico and goes to the BCS.

There are four teams that could finish with 6-3 records in the Pac-10. If that happens, many predict the Holiday Bowl will take USC, the Sun Bowl will take Cal, the Emerald Bowl will take Stanford, the Las Vegas Bowl will take Oregon State and the Poinsettia Bowl will take Arizona.

The one hitch for the Utah-BYU game is that the Cougars have been to Las Vegas four years in a row and have admitted in the past there is a little "Vegas fatigue," going around the team and might prefer a different destination.

However, Las Vegas Bowl executive director Tina Kunzer-Murphy said the Vegas bowl committee wouldn't have any qualms in taking the Cougars a fifth straight year.

"Possibly they might like a different scenery, but when BYU is here, the fans love it and Las Vegas has done a good job for BYU fans," Kunzer-Murphy said.

The appeal of taking BYU for the Vegas Bowl is the Cougars' fans have sold out the stadium the last four years. Both Kunzer-Murphy and Poinsettia Bowl

executive director Bruce Binkowski said their decisions are about matchups as well as filling the stands and hotel rooms for their sponsors, the latter of which is of particular importance in a struggling economy.

"We want a team that wants to be here too, we're still in a recession and struggling," Kunzer-Murphy said. "It's very much an important game for the city and who is coming to enjoy the game. All those factors, the host hotels and filling them, sponsors, everything goes into making the decision."

Kunzer-Murphy said she believes the Utes would also be an easy sell, which means the deciding factor could be how the opponents match up against each other.

Last year, Arizona defeated BYU 31-21 in the Las Vegas Bowl. Oregon State has been a familiar opponent for the Utes, beating them 24-7 in 2007 and losing to them 31-28 in 2008.

Bowl committees generally prefer to create matchups between teams that don't often play against one another.

In other MWC bowl situations, Air Force likely is headed to the Armed Forces Bowl and Wyoming, if it beats CSU, probably is headed to the New Mexico Bowl. The Armed Forces Bowl and New Mexico Bowl work together to create the best regional games.

lwodraska@sltrib.com