1. Establish the run: In five of UW’s six wins it ran for 100 yards or more. There isn’t necessarily a magic number the Cowboys need to hit, but a decent run game will keep the pressure off true freshman quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels in terms of thowing the ball. And, a run game will help keep the ball in UW’s possession and away from Fresno State’s powerful running game and balanced offense.

2. Stop the run: Actually, I should say slow it down because no one has stopped Fresno State’s run game and junior running back Ryan Mathews. The Bulldogs also have a couple of other talented backs. Mathews will get his yards, but they have to be hard-fought yards and the Cowboys can’t allow him to break big runs.

3. Good start: My game advance in Saturday’s paper starts out talking about how the Cowboys would like to play a complete game. To do that UW needs to get of to a good start, or at very least not get down too big, too early. The Cowboys have four fourth-quarter come-from-behind wins, including erasing a 21-point deficit at San Diego State. That’s great, but if UW doesn’t play well through the first three quarters in this game it might not matter what it does in the fourth.

4. Expect the unexpected: Don’t count on trickery on every play, but you can bet UW will pull out all the stops on offense and even special teams to give the team a spark and a big play. Bowl games are good times to try such plays since teams have had more time to work on them in practice.

5. Lots of offense: Fresno State’s offense and run game has been talked at nauseum for the last couple of weeks, and it likely will be pretty good against UW. But even though Fresno State has good players on defense, teams have averaged 27.8 points and 411.7 yards per game. And, the Bulldogs have only nine quarterback sacks and forced 14 turnovers. If UW is efficient and doesn’t turn the ball over, there could be a lot of points scored in this game.

Final score: Fresno State 33, UW 24

See Saturday’s paper for more on the game, and how UW fans have converged upon the Duke City here in Albuquerque. There is a lot of Brown and Gold around here right now. Be sure to catch the live blog for the game starting at around 1:30 p.m. at http://wyomingcowboysblog.com/2009/12/15/wyoming-vs-fresno-state-live-blog/