2015 Arizona Bowl: Nevada beats Colorado State in final minute

The end of Baylor’s regular season would have had anyone at a loss. It’s one thing to lose your starting quarterback. It’s another to lose your backup. It’s another to ask your third-stringer, a part-time receiver, to throw passes in an incredible rainstorm (against TCU). It’s another to lose that third-stringer and ask a full-time receiver to take snaps.

Even Alabama, with that amazing defense, would struggle to win with its fourth-string quarterback.

Did you watch the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl? Probably not, because it wasn’t really even on TV (, and the commissioner of the conference whose teams were competing in the game called it “a travesty.”

But we watched it, and it actually wasn’t bad! It came down to a back-and-forth ending, with Nevada emerging with a 28-23 win over Colorado State.

Even though both teams play in the Mountain West, Colorado State and Nevada weren’t scheduled to face each other in 2015. Fortunately for them, the Arizona Bowl took care of things.

The Rams and Wolfpack will meet in the first bowl game since 1979 that will feature two conference opponents battling it out. The curious matchup drew the ire of MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson, who called the bowl scheduling a “travesty” and “broken.”

Life outside of a power conference is always tough. If you make a bad hire, you have to make another one. If you make a good hire, you have to make another one.

Colorado State was an exception for a while; the Rams hired Sonny Lubick in 1993 and held onto him until 2007, through four seasons with double-digit wins and nine bowl campaigns. But life after Lubick took on a normal tone. CSU hired Steve Fairchild, and after a 7-6 debut, he won nine games in three years and was shown the door. Jim McElwain took over and also lasted three years; he raised the win total to four, then eight, then 10, and took the Florida job.

There are now 40 bowl games, plus the National Championship. That’s a lot of football.

This overflow of football has meant the usual group of 6-6 teams aren’t the worst teams to go bowling this year. This time, all of the 6-6 teams are in, plus some 5-7 teams. The idea of giving a trophy to a team that finishes 6-7 is a funny one, but everything about this sport is funny, so whatever.

_{Confused? Check out the advanced-stats glossary here.}

_{Statistical profiles index.}

Bowl season is upon us, which means the careful and thought-out ranking of the gifts players will receive. Some bowls did very well and deserve our applause. Others might as well have not shown up.

Congratulations to the following bowl games that both show an understanding of what college-aged kids want and give them some swag for a hard-fought year.