Leave it to the Wyoming weather to wreak havoc on a bowl announcment.
New Mexico Bowl Executive Director Jeff Siembieda couldn’t make it to Laramie Monday to issue the formal invitation to Wyoming coach Dave Christensen. Siembieda got as far as Denver before he headed back to Albuquerque. He had athletics director Tom Burman do the honors during a Monday news conference.
Nonetheless, UW is now “officially” is going to a bowl game. The team will have its first practice to prepare for Fresno State Tuesday.
Other news and notes from Monday’s news conference:
–UW plans to bring 92 players to to the game. Normal travel rosters for regular-season road games are usually in the 60s. It also plans to have 162 people on the team charter that arrives in Albuquerque a week from Wednesday.
–Fans are encouraged to purchase tickets now, but they also can buy them and donate them back to UW. Those tickets will be used by the athletics department as giveaways to students, and the majority will go to personnel at a military base in New Mexico.
–Don’t know if you’re familiar with University Stadium in Albuquerque, but the UW sections for the bowl game will be FF, GG and HH.
–If you are planning on going and want to know a hot spot in terms of UW functions, check out Coaches Sports Grill at 1414 Central Ave. SE. Two separate events are planned there on Dec. 17 and 18.
–UW will be the home team in the game.
–This will be UW’s 12th bowl appearance and it has been to eight different bowl games.
–True freshman tight end David Tooley (knee) will miss the bowl game. It looks like senior Orlando Arnold will get the start. He suffered through some nagging injuries near the end of the season, but Christensen said he should be completely healthy for the game.
–Interesting to see both schools’ athletics Web sites today. UW’s has a bowl ad with a link to ticket information. Frenso State has an ad for a men’s and women’s hoops doubleheader against UNLV and BYU on Dec. 12. Not a lot of mention at all on the New Mexico Bowl.
–UW true freshman quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels and Frenso State redshirt freshman running back A.J. Ellis have trained together in the off-season, along with other athletes in the Bay Area of California. Carta-Samuels said a couple of those other guys are true freshman on Oregon’s football team.
See Tuesday’s paper for more on the bowl game, including some specific numbers on tickets that UW would like to sell, and some extra fees to go along with the $30 price of the ticket.
