The two weeks around Christmas and New Year’s Day are like heaven for college football fans. This year, there are 40 post-season bowl games. Those are a reward for teams that finish their seasons with winning or break-even records.
Washington State is one of 78 teams rewarded with an extra game. This evening [Friday] the Cougars will make their final appearance of the season.
They will play the Falcons of the Air Force Academy in the Cheez-it Bowl in Phoenix. It’s one of the games considered to be in the lower tier of bowl games.
The Cougars were chosen after winning just enough games, six, to qualify for a bowl. They also lost six. The Falcons, meanwhile, won 10 games out of 12 while playing in the Mountain West Conference, which consider to be not as rigorous as the conference Washington State plays in, the Pacific-12.
Even though many of the 40 bowl games have little interest to fans nationwide, some sports pundits have opined that the Cheez-it Bowl may actually be one of the most interesting to watch. It features two teams with distinctly different styles. The Cougars throw the bowl on the vast majority of their offensive plays; the Falcons run it most of the time. And both teams score a lot of points.
Washington State is in the middle of the longest stretch of success in its football program’s history, going all the way back to 1894. For the fifth consecutive season, the Cougars are playing in a bowl game. If it’s like most of the other four, it promises to be a close game that may not be decided until the end.
The Cheez-it Bowl is scheduled to begin around 7:15 pm Friday in Phoenix. It will air on ESPN.