College football weekend: Bowl season is here! Bowl season is here!

Washington State head coach Mike Leach bristled at criticism of his late-game strategy from reporters following the Cougars’ 48-45 loss in the New Mexico Bowl Saturday.

Leach stated the obvious when asked what happened. “Colorado State finished the game. We didn’t. Down the stretch, I thought they were more consistent than we were on offense, they were more disciplined than we were on defense, and they finished the game better than we did.”

Record attendance at Saturday night’s R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. Local matters in minor bowls, and two local teams, Tulane and UL Lafayette, filled quite a bit of the Superdome. Those on hand saw an intense, dramatic, not very well-played game -- a 24-21 win for the Cajuns of Lafayette, their third straight New Orleans Bowl win -- but the latter doesn’t necessarily matter if you have enough of the former.

Percentage of San Diego State’s drives that finished in Buffalo territory during a 49-24 Aztec win. SDSU went three-and-out once, in the second quarter. Otherwise, the Aztecs’ 13 drives finished on the other side of the 50.

Colorado State athletic director Jack Graham saw the video, and told reporters he would be launching a further investigation of what happened.

After the game, Lupfer issued an apology after the game, through the team’s official Twitter account.

After jumping out to a 21-0 lead, Louisiana-Lafayette appeared to be well on its way to its third straight win in the New Orleans Bowl. The Ragin’ Canjuns did indeed come away with a 24-21 win, but not without plenty of drama.

The game went back and forth with both teams going on 21-point runs. ULL looked dominant in the early going before Tulane made a run of its own to get back in the game. The scoring settled down in the second half, but there was still plenty of action. Tulane looked down and out before Devin Powell completed a desperation heave to keep the final drive alive.

Sullen, a senior, has 44 tackles and 12 passes defensed this season.

Sullen slumped and remained motionless for several minutes as trainers surrounded him. He was eventually loaded onto a cart, where he was visibly alert and gesturing to his teammates.

San Diego State won handily in the Idaho Potato Bowl, giving head coach Rocky Long his third consecutive season of at least eight wins. Buffalo, which enjoyed an eight-win season itself, proved unable to get a ninth.

For his troubles, Long was doused in 25-degree weather:

Saturday, the tables were turned, as Kessler had an excellent game while Carr struggled in USC’s 45-20 blowout win.

The two teams traded touchdowns early, with Kessler and Carr each finding their targets for scores -- but Fresno State’s extra point was blocked, giving the Trojans an early advantage. USC was eager to prove they didn’t need the slight difference, scoring 28 straight points with three Kessler touchdown tosses to make the game 35-6 heading into halftime.

Remember the dancing Ram fan from the NCAA Tournament? Of course you do.

Well, it turns out he also likes football. CSU fans rushed the field following the Rams’ 18-point comeback win in the New Mexico Bowl and dancing Ram fan was among them.

Up eight points with under two minutes left, the Washington State Cougars looked safe to take home the New Mexico Bowl in a shootout win. Two fumbles later, the Cougs lost the game in regulation, gifting the Colorado State Rams a 48-45 victory in dramatic fashion Saturday afternoon. Colorado State scored 18 points in the last 2:52 to secure the win.

Halliday threw his career-best sixth touchdown pass near the start of the final quarter of regulation, pushing the Cougars’ lead to 45-30. Grayson responded with another touchdown pass of his own, and poor clock management from Halliday led to Jeremiah Laufasa fumbling on the next drive, giving the Rams one last chance.

Towson gave up 31 straight points to Eastern Washington, and looked out of the game with more than a minute left -- the Eagles had the ball and the lead. The Tiger defense held stout, stopping the Eagles when they needed to and allowing Connor Frazier to pull up a dramatic last-minute drive capped by a quarterback sneak to take the win, 35-31.

The Tigers will face two-time defending champion North Dakota State on Jan. 4 in Frisco, Texas. This will be the first ever title appearance for Towson, and the third for the Bison.

LET US NEVER FORGET: There is a bowl game between two college teams that rewards them for their regular season performance sponsored by, and named for, potatoes.

Yes, it’s the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, the bowl that sounds most like a horrible KFC dish, played on the blue turf of always-beautiful-in-December Boise, Idaho. Once known as the Humanitarian Bowl, the game that currently pits a Mountain West team against a MAC team had been sponsored by such relevant companies as:

The college football bowl game commercial is a specific artform. Unlike ads made specifically for the Super Bowl, which call for companies to go way over the top and far too high-concept (or, alternately, to have a dozen beerdogs bite each other in the nuts for beer), each bowl game features commercials by the game’s title sponsor. They are always horrific.

Typically, each involves the company’s CEO uttering things about football being a real touchdown of a sport, just like the company that CEO works for, which is like buying a touchdown you can own. It’s a blueprint that works. For what it works, I do not know. Making CEOs slightly famous among college football nerds.

Northwest Missouri State won their fourth Division II championship on Saturday afternoon, defeating Lenoir-Rhyne 43-28 in Florence, Ala. The Bearcats jumped out to an early 17-0 lead and stifled the normally potent LRU rushing attack to ensure the victory.

Northwest Missouri State is located in Maryville, Mo. and boasts an enrollment of just over 6,800. Unlike their opponents in this game, the Bearcats’ have a rich championship pedigree at the D2 level. This was their eighth title game appearance, and they have three national titles, including one in 2009. Lenoir-Rhyne, for those of you who may not know, is a small liberal arts college located in Hickory, N.C. with an enrollment of only 1,860. This is the Bears’ first appearance in the D2 title game, but they do have an NAIA title to their credit from the 1960 season.

You’ll note CSU assistant strength and conditioning coach Rashad Harris firmly escorting Halliday away from the Rams sideline.

GIF credit: ESPN

Matthew Fairburn has a separate preview for the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl between Southern California and Fresno State right here. Spoiler: It’s a big game for Derek Carr.

Washington State vs. Colorado State, 2 p.m., ESPN

Mountain West champions Fresno State take on USC in an intriguing early bowl matchup in Las Vegas.

The Bulldogs looked on track for a BCS-busting bid, starting the season 10-0 with wins against Boise State and San Diego State, all led by star quarterback David Carr. On a late November Friday night in San Jose, that all ended, as Fresno State lost to the San Jose State Spartans, 62-52. The team had already clinched their division, however, and beat Utah State the following week to win the Mountain West.

Two solid teams who finished one game away from their conference title games will square off on the blue turf, as Buffalo and San Diego State face each other in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

The Aztecs lost their first three games of the season, including a blowout to FCS powerhouse Eastern Illinois and a close loss to Oregon State (who lost to FCS powerhouse Eastern Washington) before winning six of their next seven games. Their most impressive wins came against San Jose State and Boise State, with conference losses to Fresno State and UNLV.

Two high-powered offenses are returning from bowl hiatuses to square of in Albuquerque, as the Washington State Cougars will take on the Colorado State Rams.

For Washington State, it’s their first bowl game in 10 years, since the 2003 Holiday Bowl under first-year coach Bill Doba. The Cougars missed the postseason for the rest of Doba’s reign and the entirety of Paul Wulff’s, but here they are under second-year head coach Mike Leach. Washington State runs Leach’s spread attack, and is ranked fourth in the nation in passing offense. They pulled off three dramatic Pac-12 wins to get here (and one not-so dramatic Pac-12 win against Cal) -- defeating a ranked USC team in September before late-season wins over Arizona and Utah clinched their bowl eligibility.

For the third time in as many years, the North Dakota State Bison will be playing in the FCS National Championship Game. On Friday night, the back-to-back defending champions clinched a spot in the title game with a 52-14 win over New Hampshire.

The game was close for a quarter, with the Bison and Wildcats tied at 7-7 after the first 15 minutes. NDSU completely took over after that, though, scoring 45 consecutive points before UNH finally found the end zone once again with less than a minute remaining on the clock.

In a battle of the nation’s two best Division-III programs, Wisconsin-Whitewater dominated Mount Union on Friday night to win the national championship, 52-14.

The win marked the fifth national title for the Warhawks and their first since 2011. The Warhawks have now won 20 straight postseason games dating back to the 2008 season after missing out on the playoffs altogether last year.

The bowl season begins on Saturday with a slate of four games, including a couple of matchups between Mountain West and BCS-conference schools. In the lower divisions, the playoffs continue, and several national championships are set to be decided.

The full schedule of the weekend ahead:

We all have our specific holiday traditions. For those who celebrate Christmas, perhaps it’s a trip to an aunt’s house on Christmas Eve or the grandparents’ on Christmas day. Perhaps there is a series of stops over three days. Perhaps there are no stops at all.

Meanwhile, the last time Tulane won a combined seven games in two seasons was 2009-10, when the Wave went 7-17. But in just his second year in charge, Curtis Johnson has engineered a 7-5 campaign, powered by a legitimately strong, top-40 defense.

The Dec. 21 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is a litmus test.

It is bowl season at its silliest, pitting two teams from very far away on a blue turf field in a very cold state in mid-December. To the winner goes a trophy bowl of potatoes. It is inane, pointless ... ridiculous, even. If you enjoy this bowl, if you watch it and tweet about it, you are a bowl-lover. If you can’t get past the unnecessary nature of any of this, bowls just aren’t for you.

Call it the Motivation Bowl.

After winning six of seven for interim coach Ed Orgeron after Lane Kiffin’s firing, USC got whipped at home by UCLA, lost Orgeron after the full-time hiring of Steve Sarkisian, and will play in the Las Vegas Bowl with a different interim coach, Clay Helton.

It is rare that you’re going to see two elite teams facing off in a pre-Christmas bowl, and the Dec. 21 Gildan New Mexico Bowl will in no way give you elite play. But what you’re looking for early in bowl season is motivation, energy, and interesting back stories. Washington State and Colorado State will probably bring plenty of that to the table.

If this were 2002, of course, a bowl matchup between these two teams would have been second-tier at worst. But since a November ‘02 peak (Wazzu reached as high as third in the AP polls, CSU 16th) and some solid play in 2003, both programs suffered nine seasons that were somewhere between unmemorable and downright cruel.