Utah State vs. Toledo, 2012 Potato Bowl: For potato fame and potato fortune

And no, none of the numbers below have to do with creepy potato references ... of which there were plenty.

11. Utah State’s S&P+ ranking heading into bowl season. Now, I’m not going to try to convince you that the Aggies are actually the 11th-best team in the country -- that seems a bit high to me, even though I’m as big an Aggie advocate as you’re going to find -- but let’s just say that the 11th-best team in the country would have probably done to Toledo what Utah State did on Saturday. It took the Utah State offense a little while to find fifth gear, but with that defense, oh, that defense, it had time.

The Aggies defense allowed fewer than 50 percent of the Toledo passes to be completed and earned plenty of key stops in their own territory to keep the Rockets off the scoreboard. The sole touchdown for Toledo came with fewer than four minutes remaining when Bernard Reedy returned a kickoff 87 yards for a score.

The combination of Keeton and Williams finished with 322 yards rushing for the Aggies, while Keeton also added 227 yards through the air.

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Molls, who is regarded as a solid NFL prospect, recorded 2.5 sacks, three interceptions and was the team’s leading tackler this past season.

And even if you have, have you see them at the same time with no other live football on TV anywhere? I mean, maybe you have. I sure haven’t.

The red isn’t doing EWU any good, as they’re already down 28-0 to Sam Houston State, while blue-clad Utah State’s beating mostly blue-clad Toledo in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, 7-3.

Speaking of commercials, we also had this one ready to go in the event of Rich Rodriguez’s Arizona Wildcats losing the New Mexico Bowl -- that game was brought to you by Gildan, which ran ads showing a young man leaving his grandmother and sick dog in a burning building so that he could save his sweatshirt. It made sense before Arizona went and won the game somehow.

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Dec. 15, 4:30 p.m. ET

Bronco Stadium, Boise, Idaho

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Toledo vs. Utah State, 4:30 p.m. EST, ESPN

Bowl season gets off to an unceremonious start on Saturday with a pair of games that probably aren’t on your radar. However, some NFL prospects will be on display for the final time in their collegiate careers.

1. MACtion. Toledo took a step backwards in 2012 following the departure of both head coach Tim Beckman and quite a few interesting pieces in the depth chart. But the Rockets still won nine games, they still beat Cincinnati (and almost beat Arizona), and they are still 49th in the F/+ rankings. They finish drives and, more importantly, show MACtion-level aggressiveness at times. With Utah State involved, this could turn into a grind-it-out affair, but Toledo takes enough chances on defense and still has enough skill position weapons to potentially turn this into a shootout. You’ll want to watch just in case.

2. Utah State is legitimately strong. Let’s face it, with the current state of the WAC it isn’t hard to figure out how to piece together a pretty unimpressive 10-2 campaign. Just beat the new and dead-weight teams (UTSA, Texas State, Idaho, New Mexico State), lose to the good ones (Louisiana Tech, San Jose State) and creep through a cakey non-conference slate. USU did not do that. The Aggies are 10-2 with road wins over both Tech (in overtime) and SJSU (by 22 points), and only five points separated them from an undefeated record. They missed a late field goal in a two-point loss to Wisconsin, and they lost by three at BYU.

College football bowl season is going to get off to a real rousing start, with Saturday’s Potato Bowl likely to draw a crowd more resembling chives than cheese, so to speak.

The really great part? The University of Toledo gets to pay the Famous Idaho Corporation (or whatever) for thousands of unused tickets! Running a bowl game a continent away from your contestant’s home base is nice business, if you can score it.