Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

San Diego State, Houston to meet in Las Vegas Bowl

Donnel Pumphrey

Gregory Bull / AP

San Diego State running back Donnel Pumphrey, right, runs during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Hawaii on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, in San Diego. The Canyon Springs graduate will attempt to set a new record for the most career rushing yards in NCAA history when his team meets the Houston Cougars on Dec. 17 at Sam Boyd Stadium in the 2016 Las Vegas Bowl.

Updated Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016 | 2:01 p.m.

The San Diego State Aztecs will take on the Houston Cougars on Dec. 17 at Sam Boyd Stadium in the 2016 Las Vegas Bowl, the bowl announced Sunday afternoon.

The announcement comes as a pleasant surprise, as the bowl was looking at many 5-7 teams as recent as last week after the Pac 12 — which normally supplies the Las Vegas Bowl with its sixth-best team — didn’t have enough bowl qualifiers.

“Ultimately, we found Houston,” said Las Vegas Bowl Executive Director John Saccenti. “We had Vegas to offer them, an unbelievable matchup with the champion of the Mountain West and the opportunity to finish their bowl game early so they can get their new coaching staff in there.”

Houston (10-3) comes in as an at-large bid from the American Athletic Conference with two top-5 wins on its resume. The Cougars opened the season with a 33-23 win over No. 3 Oklahoma on Sept. 3 and knocked off No. 5 Louisville 36-10 on Nov. 17.

Due to the team’s success, head coach Tom Herman was offered the opportunity to take over the Texas Longhorns after the firing of Charlie Strong. Defensive coordinator Todd Orlando will serve as Houston’s interim coach for the bowl game.

“It wasn’t the hardest negotiation we’ve ever had,” Saccenti said. “They are going through a coaching change and they need to get a new coaching staff in there and in place.”

Houston was ranked as high as fifth in the coaches poll this year, but fell out of the rankings after losses to SMU and Memphis.

The Cougars are led by quarterback Greg Ward Jr., who threw for 3,328 yards and 22 touchdowns while rushing for 518 yards and nine more scores on the ground.

“They have a phenomenal offense, a phenomenal quarterback, and they are incredibly talented from top to bottom,” Saccenti said.

San Diego State (10-3) is representing the Mountain West after winning the conference championship game 27-24 over Wyoming on Saturday night.

The Aztecs are back-to-back champions of the Mountain West Conference and had nonconference wins over California on Sept. 10 and Northern Illinois on Sept. 17.

But the intrigue of the game will be the Aztecs’ running back, Donnel Pumphrey, who only needs 108 rushing yards to pass Ron Dayne for the most career rushing yards in NCAA history.

“I was on the field last night in Laramie for warm-ups and Donnel walked by while I was talking to their offensive coordinator, former UNLV coach Jeff Horton,” Saccenti said. “Donnel told me, ‘I have 200 (yards) in me tonight.’ I grabbed him and said, ‘No I don’t need 200. I need you to go get close and then you can do it in our game.’”

The Canyon Springs graduate will have the opportunity to make college football history in his last collegiate game in front of a hometown crowd.

“He’s all fired up,” Saccenti said. “He’s thinking about it, and it means a lot to him, and what a great opportunity to put a great exclamation point on his career and do it here.”

Pumphrey, who was the Nevada Gatorade Player of the Year in 2012, passed Ricky Williams on Saturday to move to No. 2 all time with 6,290 rushing yards.

The Aztecs’ roster is filled with players and coaches with ties to Las Vegas.

Linebacker Randy Ricks played at Legacy High, receiver Isiah Maclin went to Green Valley and defensive lineman Noble Hall went to Valley. Not to mention former UNLV head coach Bobby Hauck, who is the special teams coach at San Diego State.

The matchup will snap a 15-year streak of the game including a Pac 12 school. The last time no Pac 12 schools participated in the Las Vegas Bowl was in 2001, when UNLV beat Arkansas 30-14.

“The one thing that I’m excited about is it’s a team that doesn’t traditionally come here or out West,” Saccenti said. “This is the first time we’ve ever had a team from the state of Texas in our game.”

The game kicks off at 12:30 p.m. Dec. 17 and will be televised on ABC.

Only approximately 5,000 tickets for the game remain, and they are expected to sell quickly. The attendance for last year’s contest between Utah and BYU was 42,213 — the eighth sellout in the past 11 years.

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves every year,” Saccenti said. “We want every game to be the best game we’ve ever had. The 25th year is something special from the standpoint of having a few other things going on by telling our story and introducing our hall of fame class.”

The bowl game’s second-ever hall of fame class includes broadcaster Brent Musburger; former University of California and Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch; and one of the game’s founding fathers, Rob Dondero.

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