Air Force digests fourth-place finish, awaits bowl fate

Air Force will finish fourth in the Mountain West Conference for the second consecutive season.

For the glass-is-half-full fan, that means the Falcons held serve by beating all the teams they beat a year ago.

For the glass-is-half-empty fan, that means the Falcons were unable, for the second season in a row, to break into the top tier of the league with No. 4 TCU, No. 18 BYU and No. 22 Utah.

Air Force seemed to provide hints that it was ready to force its way into that group in October when it took defending league champ Utah to overtime before losing and played TCU closer than any of the Horned Frogs’ other 10 victims. But the Falcons were dealt a humbling setback in Saturday’s regular season finale, a 38-21 loss to BYU.

“It shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a program to get up to that top spot in the conference,” said Air Force sophomore quarterback Tim Jefferson, whose team finished the regular season 7-5 and 5-3 in the MWC.

But while Saturday’s loss still stings – as does the realization the Falcons have lost 15 of their last 17 games to TCU, BYU and Utah, including seven in a row – there’s still plenty Air Force can celebrate. Like a third straight season with seven or more regular season victories. And a third straight bowl appearance.

“We had a solid season,” Falcons coach Troy Calhoun said after the loss at BYU. “I don’t want to take away from that.”

Air Force likely won’t find out its postseason destiny for at least another week. But it appears as if a third straight trip to the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth or a spot in the New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque are the most likely destinations.

Barring what would be an enormous upset loss to New Mexico in its season finale, TCU is headed to a BCS bowl. The Las Vegas and Poinsettia Bowls have the first two picks, respectively, of the other bowl-eligible MWC teams, and they likely will take BYU and Utah in some order.

The Armed Forces and New Mexico Bowls “work together with the conference to select the best teams regionally for the respective games,” MWC associate commissioner for communications Javan Hedlund wrote in an e-mail.

Other than Air Force, the only other MWC team that could become bowl eligible is Wyoming, which must beat Colorado State in both teams' season finale to do so. If Wyoming does not become bowl eligible, the bowls with MWC affiliations that do not get an MWC team will select an at-large team.