While the end of the 2007 college football season is in clear sight with less than one month left, the bowl picture remains muddled.
That's because there are still plenty of key games to play before everything falls into place. The Mountain West Conference has four guaranteed bowl slots — Las Vegas, Poinsettia, Armed Forces and New Mexico — and, for now, it has four bowl-eligible teams.
BYU (6-2 overall), Air Force (7-3), Utah (6-3) and New Mexico (6-3) have all qualified for a bowl. Two more teams, TCU (5-4) and Wyoming (5-4), are one win away from bowl eligibility.
MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said it's much too early to speculate on the bowl scenario at this point.
"It depends on how things shake out," he said. "Certainly, to give you any kind of thought of who's going to be where of the four contractual bowls, I wouldn't even begin to guess."
If the Cougars continue to win, they are considered a lock for the Las Vegas Bowl. However, BYU must still play the Horned Frogs, Cowboys and Utes, and the results of those games will likely determine where each bowl-eligible team will land.
The Cougars have made two consecutive trips to the Las Vegas Bowl, which recorded sellouts in each. Last year's Las Vegas Bowl, which saw BYU hammer Oregon, 38-8, attracted the largest crowd to attend a team sporting event in the history of the state of Nevada.
This year's Las Vegas Bowl, to be played on Dec. 22, has been sold out since October.
Meanwhile, representatives from the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego, Calif., will be on hand to watch tonight's BYU-TCU game and Saturday's Utah-Wyoming contest.
Chances are more than four teams will become bowl-eligible before the season is over. If that is the case, Thompson said there aren't any at-large berths out there for the MWC to fill, meaning that at least one MWC team may be left out in the cold come the holiday season.
"Right now, in our early look, there aren't any openings," Thompson said. "There's possibly going to be an opening against us in Fort Worth (the Armed Forces Bowl) if the Pac-10 doesn't get a sixth team or if one moves up to the BCS as an automatic qualifier."
Thompson added that at the beginning of the season, there was only one at-large slot available — the Poinsettia Bowl. But it has a contingency agreement with Navy, which is well on its way to becoming bowl eligible.
"We do have a contingency agreement with the Texas Bowl, but it looks as though there will probably be a Big 12 team and there will probably be a Big East team and there might be a 6-6 Conference USA team (to fill that spot)," Thompson said.
E-mail: jeffc@desnews.com
Dirk Facer contributed to this report.