LARAMIE — Wyoming’s return to the postseason is almost official.
Despite dropping three of their final four games, the Cowboys got to seven wins during the regular season, assuring them of a bowl game. There are 79 eligible teams for 78 available spots, but as Wyoming found out last season, it will be one of the handful of 6-6 Group of Five teams that will be left at home.
All seven bowl-eligible teams from the Mountain West are safe having won at least seven games, so the only question is where — and how soon — the Cowboys will be playing their final game of the season. And there aren’t many hints as to what the answer is.
All 39 bowl matchups will be announced Sunday afternoon.
“We’re going to attack when bowl prep starts,” Wyoming defensive end Garrett Crall said. “We’re going to try to win that bowl game, and that’s just how it’s going to be.”
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National prognosticators updated their final bowl projections last week with no real consensus as to where Wyoming will end up, though there is some certainty as to where the Cowboys won’t be playing.
With the Armed Forces Bowl joining the Mountain West’s rotation this season, the league has six primary bowl tie-ins. The Las Vegas Bowl gets the first choice of available teams and takes the conference champion, meaning Boise State will head there to take on a Pac-12 foe.
Should the Pac-12 or Big 12 not be available to fill their bowl allotment, the Cheez-It Bowl would then get the next choice among available MW teams as a replacement. Air Force, the only other league team with double-digit wins, would almost certainly be the pick with the Cheez-It Bowl looking to create the best possible matchup with a Power Five team.
Hawaii, which fell to Boise State in the MW championship game Saturday, will likely stay home to play in the Hawaii Bowl like it usually does, though that’s not written in stone. After the Vegas Bowl’s pick, nothing is.
The MW will work with bowl partners and the schools to place the remaining teams in the Potato, New Mexico, Armed Forces and Arizona bowls with consideration given to geography, the quality of the matchup and how frequently a team has played in a certain bowl. The most popular projection for Wyoming is the Arizona Bowl (USA Today, The Athletic, Athlon Sports, SB Nation), which the Cowboys haven’t played in since it started in 2015. Wyoming has never played in the Armed Forces Bowl either.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm and Stadium’s Brett McMurphy all have Wyoming pegged for the New Mexico Bowl, which the Cowboys haven’t played in since 2011.
No projections have Wyoming making another trip to Boise, Idaho, for the Potato Bowl, where the Cowboys played their most recent bowl game in 2017. Wyoming has already been to Albertsons Stadium once this season when it lost to Boise State in overtime on Nov. 9.
According to a source, the Arizona Bowl or the New Mexico Bowl will most likely be the Cowboys’ destination. Soon, all of the speculation will be over.