Kelly Lyell

kellylyell@coloradoan.com

Hoping for a warm and sunny locale for CSU’s bowl game this season?

Don’t get your hopes up just yet.

Although in theory, the Rams are in the running for any of the six bowl games contractually obligated to include a Mountain West team in their games, Colorado State University is far more likely to wind up in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl on Dec. 22 in Boise than in San Diego for the Poinsettia Bowl, Honolulu for the Hawaii Bowl or even Tucson again for the Arizona Bowl.

A lot can still happen between now and Dec. 4, when the pairings are announced.

But several scenarios likely to play out with the conference’s other bowls will probably put the Rams (6-5, 4-3 MW) in Idaho for the holidays.

The Las Vegas Bowl, played Dec. 17, gets the first pick among the MW’s bowl-eligible teams and usually takes the winner of the conference championship game. It’s not required to pick the champion, though, so Boise State (10-1, 6-1), No. 19 in this week's College Football Playoff rankings, could be the choice even if San Diego State (9-2, 6-1) and Wyoming (8-3, 6-1) wind up playing for the conference title.

The MW has a backup agreement to provide a team for the Dec. 27 Cactus Bowl in Tempe, Arizona, if either the Big 12 or Pacifice-12 conferences can’t fill their slots. It looks like the Pac-12 slot will open up this year, giving the Cactus Bowl second pick among the MW’s bowl-eligible teams. So look for San Diego State or Wyoming or Boise State to fill that slot, as well.

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The other five bowl games select teams, in no particular order, working with the conference office, bowl officials and ESPN, which owns and televises five of the six games under contract with the MW.

The odd team out in the trio at the top of Boise State, San Diego State and Wyoming will likely wind up in the Poinsettia Bowl and playing BYU, although Boise State could be bumped since the Broncos played BYU in a regular-season game last month and bowl officials might not want to bring Wyoming in if the Cowboys wind up playing in a conference championship game against San Diego State on Dec. 3 at Qualcomm.

Regardless, CSU isn’t likely to get into that game, particularly since the Rams are traveling to Qualcomm this weekend for their regular-season finale against San Diego State.

Commissioner Craig Thompson has made no secret of wanting to keep Hawaii (5-7) in Honolulu to play in the Dec. 24 Hawaii Bowl, if the Rainbow Warriors get the sixth win they need to become eligible by winning a home game Saturday night against Massachusetts.

The conference has to pay about $1 million to send any other school to Hawaii for the game and would also have to fork out additional money, $750,000 or so, to bring a bowl-eligible Hawaii team to the mainland for another bowl. That’s a big hit to the revenue pool from the College Football Playoff and bowl payouts that is divvied up among the conference’s 12 schools after the bowl expenses are subtracted.

So if Hawaii, a 7 ½-point favorite over UMass, is bowl-eligible, the Rainbow Warriors will stay home to play in that game.

That leaves three bowl-eligible teams — Air Force (8-3, 4-3), CSU and New Mexico (7-4, 5-2). And three bowl games to send them to — Arizona, Idaho Potato and New Mexico.

New Mexico played in the New Mexico Bowl a year ago but would still be the MW team likely to bring the most fans to the game if it returned. If not, Air Force might be a good catch for a game played just a few miles from Kirtland Air Force Base and its 4,200 active duty personnel, 1,000 Air National Guard members and 3,200 reservists, not to mention a civilian workforce of more than 14,000.

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Air Force and New Mexico would also be good options for the Arizona Bowl, which had CSU and its fans in its inaugural game last year. So New Mexico goes to one of those games and Air Force the other, leaving CSU and its fans headed to Boise on a cold December night to face an opponent from the Mid-American Conference.

Nothing, of course, is etched in stone, and the outcome of games played this weekend could have a big impact, given that Boise State is currently the highest-ranked Group of Five team in the College Football Playoff rankings but only eligible for the Cotton Bowl if it were the conference champion. Boise State has to win Friday night at Air Force and have Wyoming lose Saturday night at New Mexico to win the Mountain Division title and get into the MW championship game. Otherwise, Wyoming is the Mountain Division champion. San Diego State has already clinched the West Division title.

The national analysts have the Rams all over the place, including the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana; Heart of Dallas Bowl; and Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit, filling slots in those games that other conferences can’t. The only way that could happen is if Hawaii wins to give the conference seven bowl-eligible teams, none go to the Cotton Bowl as the highest-ranked champion in a Group of Five conference and the Pac-12 is able to fill all seven of its bowl slots, negating the need for an MW team under the backup deal.

Another, Fox Sports’ Stewart Mandel, has the Rams playing a UTSA team they beat Sept. 10 in Fort Collins in the New Mexico Bowl, also highly unlikely.

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Brett McMurphy both have the Rams facing Miami (Ohio) in the Idaho Potato Bowl. It’s the most likely scenario out there.

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CSU bowl projections

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach – Dec. 22 Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise vs. Miami (Ohio)

ESPN’s Brett McMurphy – Dec. 22 Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise vs. Miami (Ohio)

USA TODAY Sports’ George Schroeder – Dec. 27 Cactus Bowl in Tempe, Arizona, vs. TCU

CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm – Dec. 27 Heart of Dallas Bowl vs. Western Kentucky

Yahoo SB Nation’s Jason Kirk – Dec. 26 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, vs. Mississippi State

Fox Sports’ Stewart Mandel – Dec. 17 New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque vs. UTSA

Sports Illustrated’s Colin Becht – Dec. 30 Arizona Bowl in Tucson vs. Idaho

Bleacher Report’s Kerry Miller – Dec. 26 Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit vs. Georgia Tech

College Football News – Dec. 27 Cactus Bowl in Tempe, Arizona, vs. Baylor