College football: Cougars to face Utah State in Boise bowl; Boise State to play Huskies in LA Bowl

From wire and news services 

Washington State (6-6) will play Utah State (6-6) in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl on Monday, Dec. 22, at Albertsons Stadium in Boise, it was announced Sunday.

Kickoff is at 11 a.m. PST on ESPN. 

The game will mark the sixth all-time meeting between the two teams, WSU holding a 3-2 advantage, with the most recent being a 49-28 Cougar victory at Gesa Field during the 2024 season. 

Both teams will be in the new-look Pac-12 next year.

This year marks WSU's first appearance in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, which dates back to the inaugural game in 1997, known as the Humanitarian Bowl. Over the years, the game has seen multiple title sponsors of the Humanitarian Bowl until 2011, when it became the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. 

Previously WSU has played in the Rose Bowl (1916, 1931, 1998, 2003), the Holiday Bowl (1981, 2003, 2016, 2017, 2024), the Aloha Bowl (1988), the Copper Bowl (1992), the Alamo Bowl (1994, 2018), the Sun Bowl (2001, 2015), the 2013 New Mexico Bowl and the 2022 LA Bowl. The Cougars are 8-11 in bowl games all-time. 

Boise State: The Broncos (9-4) will square off against Washington (8-4) in the LA Bowl on Saturday, Dec. 13, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (5 p.m., KXLY). 

Boise State is bowl-eligible for the 28th consecutive season, the second-longest active streak in the nation. Only Georgia (29) has a longer active streak. 

This will mark the Broncos’ second appearance in the LA Bowl. Boise State lost to UCLA 35-22 in 2023. The bowl matchup will mark the Broncos’ seventh all-time matchup against Washington, and the third in a bowl game. The two teams split the previous bowl matchups, both of which occurred at the Las Vegas Bowl; the Broncos defeated the Huskies 28-26 in 2012, while Washington was victorious, 38-7, in 2019. The Huskies lead the all-time series 4-2. 

Since moving to the FBS ranks in 1996, Boise State is 13-9 in bowl games. Last season, the Broncos earned a berth in the Fiesta Bowl and College Football Playoff, dropping to No. 6 Penn State, 31-14, in the quarterfinal round. 

New Mexico: The Lobos (9-3), under former Idaho coach Jason Eck, will play Minnesota (7-5) in the Rate Bowl in Phoenix, Ariz., on Friday, Dec. 26, at 1:30 p.m. PST on ESPN at Chase Field, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

The bowl selection is the first for the Lobos since 2016. 

Eck is in his first year at New Mexico, after coaching at Idaho from 2022-24. 

College Football Playoff: Alabama and Miami are in, Notre Dame is out and Indiana is No. 1 in the CFP’s 12-team bracket. 

The undefeated Hoosiers vaulted to the top spot based on their win in the Big Ten title game against Ohio State, which fell one spot after its 13-10 loss. SEC champion Georgia was third and Big 12 champ Texas Tech fourth. All four get first-round byes. 

Most of the drama surrounded the bubble teams, and it was Alabama at No. 9 and Miami at No. 10 making the field by leapfrogging Notre Dame, which lost to the Hurricanes during opening week. 

American Conference champion Tulane got the 11th spot and Sun Belt champion James Madison got the last spot over Duke, the champion of the Atlantic Coast Conference. 

The rest of the field: No. 5 Oregon, No. 6 Ole Miss, No. 7 Texas A&M and No. 8 Oklahoma. 

The playoffs start Dec. 19-20 with first-round games: James Madison at Oregon; Tulane at Mississippi; Miami at Texas A&M and Alabama at Oklahoma. 

The final is set for Jan. 19 outside of Miami. 

Notre Dame was passed over for Alabama and Miami for two bubble spots in the bracket, then said it would not be playing in a bowl game. The Fighting Irish dropped two notches in the rankings over the last two weeks despite a 10-game winning streak, winning their finale by 29 points and sitting on the couch Saturday.  

Alabama didn't move at all in the CFP rankings after a 28-7 loss to Georgia that looked worse than that, but the committee didn't count that against the Tide in keeping with a hazy policy that refrains from penalizing teams for playing in their league title game.  

Miami didn't play either, but the Hurricanes' win over Notre Dame in Week 1 played a role in their move once the teams were grouped right next to each other after BYU lost its game on Saturday.  

Committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said he directed the committee to rewatch Miami's win over Notre Dame way back Aug. 31. 

"Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, we had the side-by-side comparison that everyone had been hungry for," Yurachek said. 

The committee's other key decision was choosing James Madison over Duke for the final spot, a selection that left the Atlantic Coast Conference champion out of the mix, but didn't fully exclude the ACC because of Miami's move into the bracket.  

No bowls: Bowl organizers were left scrambling to create matchups after Notre Dame, Iowa State and Kansas State announced they would decline bids despite being eligible.  

There are 41 bowls this year, and 82 teams won the necessary six games to be eligible. That changed when Iowa State and Kansas State, teams going through coaching changes, nearly simultaneously said they were hanging up their cleats for the season.  

Notre Dame followed a few hours later after it was announced the Irish were the first team left out of the College Football Playoff. Mississippi State and Rice are 5-7 teams that will play in bowls.