Happy Thanksgiving.

Looks like Colorado coach Dan Hawkins will be back for a fifth year.

Since I don’t have much else today, here’s a thought about the Falcons’ bowl destination:

Air Force’s most likely landing spots seem to be Fort Worth (for the Armed Forces Bowl) and Albuquerque (for the New Mexico Bowl).

The thinking behind that is TCU (barring a huge upset loss to New Mexico) will head to a BCS Bowl. And BYU and Utah (which will finish in second and third place in the league in some order) will be selected by the Las Vegas and Poinsettia Bowls, which have the first two selections of Mountain West Conference teams. That would leave the Armed Forces and New Mexico Bowls to fight over Air Force.

Now … if Utah beats BYU, I’d suspect the Vegas bowl would take the Utes and the Poinsettia Bowl gladly would select BYU – I’m told the Poinsettia badly wants the Cougars, who were in San Diego 25 years ago for the Holiday Bowl. But … if BYU beats Utah, will Vegas take the Cougars again? That would be five straight years that BYU is in the bowl.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say Las Vegas takes BYU. That would leave Utah for the Poinsettia Bowl. However, the Utes were there in 2007 and, from what I’ve been told, didn’t exactly sell a ton of tickets. And remember, the bowls don’t have to tailor their picks to order of finish in the league. The Poinsettia has second “choice.” So would it consider taking an Air Force team that finished behind Utah but has shown the ability to bring a ton more fans? Especially since two years ago the bowl selected a Utah team that lost to Air Force because Navy was in the bowl (and Navy will be back in 2010 if it wins six or more games).

I’ve run this scenario by several folks who should know. They tell me it’s a long-shot. And if I had to wager, I’d probably throw money on Armed Forces first and New Mexico second.

But it’s always fun to consider the possibilities. We should know a lot more this weekend.

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