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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
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Jeremy Mauss

2020 Mountain West Football Bowl Projections


2020 Mountain West Football Bowl Projections


Ten momths away from bowl games, sure let’s predict them.


Contact/Follow @JeremyMauss & @MWCwire

Some super early preseason fun

Yes, the bowl games are 10 months away but let’s have some offseason fun and try to predict where these Mountain West teams will go bowling. There are at least six bowl spots for the Mountain West and the option for more with the Cheeze-It Bowl being a backup or if the Mountain West champion goes to a New Year’s Six Bowl Game.

To figure out these bowl projections this early is to use our staff’s way-too-early power rankings and for the New Year’s Six spot for a Group of Five team we used a composite of the major preseason top 25 rankings to find the highest rated G5 team.

That composite that includes G5 teams has Cincinnati as the highest Group of Five team with Boise State close behind. So, this first one will not include a Mountain West team in a big money bowl game.

These bowl projections are a whole lot of fun to speculate nearly a year out so take these projections with that in mind before yelling at us on Twitter or Facebook.


A few notes about the bowl lineups. There is a new bowl lineup for 2020-26 with one game sort of a TBD with a game in the Dallas area. That game looks to be the Frisco Bowl (that is what FBSchedules.com has listed) which is in that Dallas region. The opponent is not locked down as the leagues mentioned are the American, C-USA and MAC; so, we will just toss some random team in this initial prediction.

The Las Vegas Bowl is no more and it is basically shifting the same matchup to the new Los Angeles Bowl at SoFi Stadium.

The Hawaii Bowl is also a weird option as it is a three-team mess with AAC and C-USA plus Hawaii. As usual, it makes the most sense that the Hawaii Bowl will host Hawaii if they are not in a New Year’s Six game.

Finally, if the Mountain West is the highest-rated team in the College Football Playoff then a New Year’s Six Bowl game.

  • College Football Playoff/New Year’s Six Bowl
  • Los Angeles (Bowl name TBA) vs. Pac-12, Los Angeles
  • Famous Idaho Potato Bowl vs. MAC, Boise, Idaho
  • New Mexico Bowl vs. C-USA, Albuquerque, N.M.
  • NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl vs. MAC, Tucson, Ariz.
  • SoFi Hawai’i Bowl vs. AAC or C-USA, Honolulu
  • Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl vs. AAC, C-USA, AAC
  • Cheez-It® Bowl vs. Big Ten or Big 12, Phoenix (MW is an alternate)

Los Angeles Bowl

SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, California
Mountain West vs. Pac-12
Projection: Boise State vs. Arizona

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

Albertsons Stadium, Boise, Idaho
Mountain West vs. MAC
Projection: San Diego State vs. Kent State

Gildan New Mexico Bowl

Branch Field at Dreamstyle Stadium, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Mountain West vs. Conference USA
Projection: Air Force vs. UAB

SoFi Hawaii Bowl

Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, Hawaii
C-USA or AAC vs. Mountain West
Projection: Hawaii vs. Navy

NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl

Arizona Stadium, Tucson, Arizona
Sun Belt vs. Mountain West
Projection: Utah State vs. Georgia State

Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl

Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas
Mountain West vs. AAC, C-USA, MAC
Projection: Wyoming vs. Temple

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