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The MPC Bowl: And the Winner is?
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New Year’s Eve 2006 marks not only the end of another exciting year but also the end of the 10th annual MPC Computers Bowl game. This year’s game (just like the last two and 4 of the 10 games) was another last-minute victory decided by a touchdown or less.
Miami came out victorious over Nevada with a 21-20 final. That is something the seniors and the players can take home with pride. Despite the big win, however, there will be no riots of joy in beach city tonight. There will be no parade at the Orange Bowl waiting for the players when they get home. The head coach will not be getting a bonus for winning yet another bowl game. In fact, the head coach will find himself in the unemployment line tomorrow.
Though a victory is a victory – and a bowl victory is even sweeter – beating a third place Western Athletic Conference team in a winter bowl game in Idaho will not have the boosters singing ‘We Are the Champions’ at the top of their lungs. Miami has simply been too successful for too long to take this victory as anything more than a nice way to end a bad season.
Nevada played a very good game and left it all out on the field. They admirably fought a tougher, faster team from a bigger conference with more money and support than all of the WAC combined. Losing by one point should not leave the Wolf Pack feeling ashamed. They put on a show and proved to the country that they have a darn good team in Reno. But Head Coach Chris Ault said it best.
“We weren’t interested in coming close, we were interested in winning,” Ault said.
Moral victories are nice if you need a warm fuzzy feeling in defeat, but every player and fan will tell you a moral victory is not a win.
The traveling fans from both cities were appreciated and exclaimed they were happy to be here and found Boise to be very hospitable. Though masses of them were hard to find, both schools combined would have a hard time filling up the end zones of Bronco Stadium. At last count the box office claimed each team had purchased fewer than 1,000 tickets. This is expected from the Miami fans; after all they are more used to playing in bowls named after potato chips than computer chips.
Reno fans on the other hand will have a hard time explaining this to other bowl committees in the future. Big-time bowls want teams that can travel well and bringing less than 1,000 fans just 400 miles away to only your second bowl game this decade is shameful. What will it take to give Nevada-Reno the kind of support they deserve? They got back their coach with the most wins in the history of the program with Ault. They were co-champions of the WAC and bowl winners last year. They’ve played in two bowl games in as many years and yet there were more butts in the ashtrays of the El Dorado Casino than were in the seats of Mackay Stadium this year.
This is a program on the rise, but the fans have as of yet to wake-up and realize that. Sure there was a big basketball game in Seattle against Gonzaga tonight, but that is one regular season game out of 31. Surely a bowl game is more, or at least as, important. I’m sorry, but the fans of neither of these teams were really the winners tonight.
At an announced attendance of more than 28,000 people, at least the locals showed in masses. This placed the 2006 bowl near the third-most attended in the history of the MPC Bowl. These fans tonight were treated to a great match-up and a thrilling game right to the end. Considering 20,000 Treasure Valley football fans are in Arizona, this is an amazing testament to the support of this bowl and it proves we are a football-crazy community.
Support comes in not only in the form of attendance numbers but also in the form of praise from those that matter. Clyde McCoy, the athletic faculty advisor for the Miami Hurricanes told me, “We were excited to be able to come to the bowl, and most of us have never been to Boise and we were excited about that, and we were greeted every day with unbelievable hospitality. And I think everybody from Miami that I have talked to thinks that this is probably the most hospitable we’ve ever been treated and I’ve been to 14 in a row.”
Ault takes it one step further.
“The city of Boise, that’s a classy as community that I have ever been around or been associated with,” he said. “You’re just like your football team, your champions. And we really appreciate the tremendous support … so thanks so much for being classy, we really appreciate that.”
This is another step in the right direction for the football program, the Treasure Valley and the state of Idaho. To be able to prove that we can support a bowl game even in the most adverse of situations is something that other bowls and even other conferences will look at when they are deciding if Boise State is worthy of an invite. So the real winner tonight is the MPC Bowl and the entire Treasure Valley.
Troy Sawyer