Washington State beats Miami, tons of snow in Sun Bowl

Honestly, a 6-6 cutoff for a bowl is pretty arbitrary. Going by F/+ ratings, your average 5-7 power-conference team is midway between your average 7-5 or 8-4 mid-major. The only reason we cut things off at 6-6 is to make ourselves feel better about not sending a team with a losing record to a bowl.

We learned this year that having 40 bowls is a tipping point. While there were plenty of scenarios that could make for 80 bowl-eligible teams, three 5-7 teams -- Nebraska, San Jose State, and Minnesota -- got postseason bids.

The 2015 Sun Bowl wasn’t your typical Sun Bowl. It was very, very snowy, which presents the opportunity to build snowmen ... and other things.

Luckily for this man, he found a few buddies to help him out.

Miami was trailing 20-14 late in the Sun Bowl, which, despite the name, was played in a blizzard. They had the ball at the 28-yard line, with three minutes left in the season. They ran this play, a halfback pass by Joseph Yearby.

On the one hand, we admire the gusto of Miami going with the trick play at a critical time. Washington State’s defenders bit on the play, as Miami WR Stacy Coley was wiiiiide open sprinting to the end zone. If Miami’s running back makes a halfway decent throw, they’re in the lead. Bowl games are a team’s last chance to bust out trick plays -- might as well use a play that can get you a touchdown now rather than never. Leave it all on the field, right?

Washington State beat Miami in a snowy Sun Bowl to get its first bowl win since the 2003 Holiday Bowl, and its first nine-win season since 2003. That calls for an extra-special celebration for the Cougars, who celebrated double the amount with coach Mike Leach. They gave him two Gatorade baths at once!

Leach is lucky this game wasn’t a little bit colder, or else he would have gotten a nice thud on his head from some frozen Gatorade.

Washington State beat Miami, 20-14, in the Sun Bowl to get its first bowl win since the 2003 Holiday Bowl, but this Sun Bowl defied its name and then some. It wasn’t sunny at all. It was snowy as can be in El Paso, Texas, and that made for a lot of fun, sloppy football.

This game was, predictably, a mess. Washington State games are always wild, back-and-forth affairs, while Miami isn’t used to playing in the snow. This isn’t what you sign up for when you accept a bid to the Sun Bowl.

Miami’s football team and fans are warm weather creatures, which is why it’s smart that the ibis, which favors tropical climes, serves as their mascot. Miami is in the Sun Bowl, which hypothetically should be, well, sunny, but it turns out there’s a dang blizzard. Sebastian is adapting to his habitat well!

Seems like this is all in good fun, unlike when Wisconsin fans lobbed snowballs at refs over bad calls. Besides, judging from Washington State’s shirtless, sombrero-clad fans, it seems like they can handle it.

It’s snowy at the Sun Bowl. Yes, the Sun Bowl, in El Paso, Texas, is being played in borderline blizzard conditions. So snowy, in fact, that the camera operators can’t quite find the football:

Miami’s kicker was just practicing his kickoff stroke, but CBS’ camera crew apparently thought it was the real thing, and then was mystified when they couldn’t find the ball through all the snow.

Miami is playing Washington State in a game literally called the Sun Bowl. It is snowing.

The game is being played in El Paso, TX, so most days the name might make sense. Today though, it is a giant lie.

The Sun Bowl has an odd history of either being the most or least interesting bowl.

In 2005, UCLA erased an early deficit and returned two onside kicks for touchdowns in a 12-point win. In 2006, Oregon State went for two in the final seconds to take down Missouri in a back-and-forth affair. In 2009, Oklahoma outlasted Toby Gerhart and Stanford by four. In 2011, Utah eased past Georgia Tech in overtime. In 2014, Duke engineered a big comeback over Arizona State, then lost by five anyway. (And technically, Oregon State’s 3-0 win over Pitt in 2008 was interesting.)

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Only three bowl games have a history as long or longer than the Sun Bowl and all three are featured as part of the New Year’s Six. The annual matchup in El Paso, Texas, meanwhile, will hold its 82nd game one day after Christmas.

The Rose Bowl is the only bowl game that has existed longer than the Sun Bowl, while the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl were founded in the same year. After 50 years without a title sponsor, a few different companies have taken over the role, including Hyundai, which began sponsoring the game in 2010.