Rams win title share, bowl hopes against Rebels

As expected, the Colorado State Rams earned a share of the inaugural Mountain West Conference football title on Saturday at Sam Boyd Stadium.

What wasn't expected, however, is how hard Sonny Lubick's Rams had to fight to earn it.

Colorado State, a 22-point favorite, had to overcome a 17-14 halftime deficit and didn't take its first lead until midway through the third quarter en route to a 35-17 victory before a crowd of 16,498.

The Rams finished the year with a 8-3 record and 5-2 MWC mark as well as a five-game winning streak. Whether that will be good enough to get picked to either the Liberty Bowl or Las Vegas Bowl over teams like Utah and BYU and Wyoming may not be known until Monday or Tuesday.

"From our standpoint, we are champions," Lubick said. "The conference or the bowl committee might argue, but the tie-breakers were all set up a year ago, and by those guidelines, we win.

"I feel like we have been the best team in the conference over the last five weeks. We've won our last five games where the others (in the conference) have been up and down. We were the best at the end of the season. The only thing in our control was to come out here and play a heck of a game, which we did. Now we just have to sit back and wait."

Liberty Bowl officials, who have first choice of MWC teams to face Conference-USA champ Southern Miss on New Year's Eve in Memphis, have not tipped their hand as to which of the four teams they will pick, although CSU officials have been led to believe that the Liberty will go along with whoever wins the tie-breaker. That would be the Rams.

The Las Vegas Bowl, which gets second choice to face WAC co-champ Fresno State on Dec. 18 at Sam Boyd, has its hands tied until the Liberty Bowl makes up its mind.

"They haven't told us anything," said Tina Kunzer-Murphy, managing director of the Las Vegas Bowl. "They said they'd let us know sometime on Monday. We probably won't have an announcement until Tuesday."

For a half Saturday, it looked like John Robinson's Rebels (3-8, 1-6) might make the bowl picture a whole lot clearer.

UNLV, behind the running of junior tailback Jeremi Rudolph (76 yards on 24 carries, 1 TD) and the passing of true freshman quarterback Matt Ray (16-of-29, 216 yards, 1 TD), led 17-14 at halftime on a 34-yard field goal by senior placekicker Tim O'Reilly, only the second field goal all year for the Rebels.

Even more surprising was the fact the Rebels, whose defense was rated 110th out of 114 Division I team against the run, had managed to outrush the Rams, 86 to 76, and held a 219 to 196 edge in total yardage.

But Colorado State outscored UNLV, 21-0, after intermission with MWC rushing leader Kevin McDougal (113 yards on 24 carries) giving the Rams their first lead, 21-17, with a eight-yard touchdown run around right end with 10:50 left in the third quarter.

Rams quarterback Matt Newton (22-of-33, 227 yards, 1 TD) hit Joey Cuppari with a 27-yard touchdown pass with 9:34 left in the game to up CSU's lead to 28-17. Freshman Rashaan Sanders closed out the scoring about five minutes later with a six-yard touchdown run.

"It was a good game," Robinson said. "Our team gave a good account of itself today. The question going in was how many points could Colorado State score on us and would they rub our faces in it? That didn't happen, obviously, and they were happy to get out of here with a win."

Lubick agreed with that assessment.

"I'm happy with our team and the way we came back," he said. "I can't tell you how much respect and admiration I have for John (Robinson). I knew he would have these guys ready to play."

The three victories for the Rebels equaled their total for their previous last two seasons combined under former coach Jeff Horton, now a quarterbacks coach for Rose Bowl-bound Wisconsin.

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