The 2013
Mountain West Conference Football Championship Game determined the
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
champion of the
Mountain West Conference (MW). The game, played at
Bulldog Stadium on the campus of
California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), was the first football conference championship game for the Mountain West Conference. The game featured the West Division champions
Fresno State Bulldogs hosting the Mountain Division champions
Utah State Aggies.
Fresno State won 24–17 and represented the Mountain West in the
2013 Las Vegas Bowl
The 2013 Las Vegas Bowl was an American college football bowl game that was played on December 21, 2013, at Sam Boyd Stadium in Whitney, Nevada, in the Las Vegas Valley. The 22nd annual Las Vegas Bowl, it featured the Mountain West Conference cha ...
on December 21 in
Las Vegas, Nevada after defeating Utah State by 7 points.
History
After the
2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, the league added two new members,
San Jose State and
Utah State for the 2013 season. By adding two new members for a total of 12 football members (11 all-sports members and football-only
Hawaii), the MW was able to split into two divisions, the Mountain and the West, and to organize an annual conference championship game.
Teams
Mountain Division Champions
Utah State comes into the championship with a non–conference record of 1–3 after losing to former Mountain West member Utah, USC and BYU, while beating Weber State. Utah State was first in the Mountain Division standings with a conference record of 2–0 until losing to
Boise State
Boise State University (BSU) is a public research university in Boise, Idaho. Founded in 1932 by the Episcopal Church, it became an independent junior college in 1934 and has been awarding baccalaureate and master's degrees It became a publ ...
. Utah State then fell to third behind
Wyoming and Boise State. Wyoming then lost to
Colorado State
Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...
which moved Boise State to first and Utah State to second in the standings. Boise State then lost a close game in overtime against
San Diego State, which moved Utah State back at first in the division. By the end of the regular season, Utah State stayed undefeated after the loss to Boise State bringing the Aggies to their first division championship.
This was Utah State's first appearance in Mountain West Conference Championship series.
West Division Champions
Fresno State comes into the championship undefeated in non–conference games against Rutgers, Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo, and Idaho. Fresno State stayed undefeated winning close games against Boise State,
Hawaii and San Diego State and rose to #14 in the
BCS Polls prior to their last game of the regular season against
San Jose. After Fresno State lost to San Jose State they fell to #22 but continued to stay at the top of their division as the other five teams in the West Division lost more than one conference game, which led the team to their first division championship.
This was Fresno State's first appearance in Mountain West Conference Championship series.
Scoring summary
Statistics
References
{{Utah State Aggies football navbox
Championship
Mountain West Conference Football Championship Game
Fresno State Bulldogs football games
Utah State Aggies football games
Mountain West Conference Football Championship Game
Mountain West
2010s in Fresno, California