New Mexico State Is the Cinderella of Bowl Season

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Yesterday, the college football world stood with bated breath, awaiting the announcement of the College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six games. But, littered across the bowl announcements were a ton of happy little ancillary stories like this one involving the Aggies of New Mexico State:

CBS Sports ran this story yesterday:

As for where New Mexico State will wind up, the best guess — and the team’s only hope for postseason life — is the Arizona Bowl. According to NBC 9 out of El Paso, the Aggies “can’t afford” any of the four other Sun Belt bowls due to a number of factors, including financial constraints and travel distance for fans. Should NMSU be placed elsewhere, it will have to decline the bid.

Well, guess what, folks! It’s a real life Cinderella story, because the Aggies are going to the Arizona Bowl! What’s that? A single tear rolling down my cheek.

It really is the most wonderful time of the year. You’d hate to see a team win bowl eligibility for the first time in 57 years – 57 YEARS – only to not be able to play in a bowl game. But, so goes life in the Sun Belt.

Courtesy of the Las Cruces Sun-News:

For just the fourth time in school history — and first time since 1960 — the New Mexico State football team is bowl game bound. The team won its sixth game to become bowl eligible on Saturday with a 22-17 home victory over South Alabama.

The Aggies accepted an invitation from Executive Director Alan Young to play in the third Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl on Dec. 29 at Arizona Stadium in Tucson, Arizona.

Kickoff is 3:30 p.m. and the game will be televised live on CBS Sports Network.

See, I go back and forth. On one hand, I say there are simply too damn many bowl games to keep up with. The fact that we had 5-7 teams (yes, multiple losing teams) going to bowls last season was absurd. In a way, it rewards mediocrity.

But, on the other hand, I read something like this and think, “that’s pretty damn cool.” And, I’m genuinely happy for these Aggies. Plus, can you ever really have too much college football?

What a season this has been. This bittersweet feeling sets in every year in the lull between conference championship weekend and the start of bowl season. The calm before the storm, if you will. If you’re like me, you’re sad to see the season end, but look forward to the best time of the year between the holidays and the bowl games. What’s that? Yes – another single tear just rolled down my cheek.

We’ll be ramping up our bowl coverage here in the next week or two. Your boy has to handle some business in San Francisco, but I’ll be back in the office on Friday, ready to tackle the most wonderful time of the year.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Alabama Crimson Tide football, the WWE, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley

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