MAACO Bowl Las Vegas Preview

Matchup: Boise St. vs Arizona St. Boise St. is now one of the best programs in college football led my Chris Petersen and Kellen Moore. This season was disappointing with the loss to TCU costing it a conference championship though. Arizona St. has long been one of the most underachieving programs in the sport and this year was no exception. It started with such promise with a blowout win over USC, but a four game losing streak got the coach fired.

Matchup Pedigree: Boise St. is one of the gold standards among the non-BCS programs and now consistently is a top 10 program. Arizona St., once again, is one of the sports biggest underachivevers.

Locale: Average. Las Vegas is a great location for a game. Sam Boyd Stadium is an abomination. Believe me, I have been to two these things. It’s cold and miserable, and that was with BYU, a full stadium and close games.

Entertainment Value: Good. The Boise St. offense is quite entertaining, especially against a bad defense like Arizona St.’s. The Arizona St. offense is explosive and mistake prone. The game might not be close, but it will be entertaining.

Corporate Nonsense: Tons. First of all, the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas is an awful name. Second, there is no excuse of Las Vegas to have a corporate sponsor. Just being Las Vegas should be enough and if its not, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority should sponsor this and leave it as the Las Vegas Bowl.

Bowl Pedigree: Decent. This game started as a conference champions matchup between the Big West and MAC. Then it got the Mountain West Champion tie-in after the Liberty Bowl dispute over Utah 2004. Since then, it has hosted good matchups, but it really needs a better Pac-12 team.

Game Prediction: Arizona St. is, explosive, bad on defense and undisciplined. Boise St. is only one of those and it’s the good one.

Boise St. 44, Arizona St. 28

Should you watch: Yes. It’s Kellen Moore’s last game and Vontaze Burfict and his different brand of crazy is playing for Arizona St. for a coach who he no incentive to control himself for.