ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The future of Fresno State football stood in the corner of University Stadium and watched the residents of Wyoming get their holiday wish.
Running back Robbie Rouse said he and quarterback Derek Carr wanted to “watch it all, take it all in.”

Why?
“Because we don’t want this to happen ever again.”
There was plenty on the buffet. It must have felt like they were rubber-necking a 20-car pile-up in a riot during a tornado. Call it the Second Annual New Mexico Bowl Debacle.
Fresno State shouldn’t be allowed in Albuquerque, purely for self-preservation. Nothing good happens here. This is the last place Dan Brown coached a college game, and possibly the last place Ryan Mathews will play one.
Mathews wouldn’t talk afterward, and maybe the only good thing to come from Saturday’s game is that such a painful loss might cause him to rethink the NFL.
“He’s struggling, but he’ll be all right,” fullback Reynard Camp told Mathews’ mother outside the locker room.
The Bulldogs lost to Wyoming, 35-28 in two overtimes, and as feel-good and upstart as Cowboys football may be right now, it’s still a 6-6 team that was only in a bowl because there are far too many of them.
The game didn’t unravel, it came unraveled. Fresno State got stuffed four straight times at the 1, out-toughed when they tried straight-forward. The star running back fumbled in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs pulled off a rare feat, scoring zero points in two overtimes.
Oh, young people, there was so much to soak in, Wyoming fans and players saturating the field in their school colors: brown and off-brown. That steam that was coming off their heads as they jumped and hugged wasn’t body heat reacting to the cold New Mexico night air, it was the momentum of the Fresno State season drifting away.
The school decided to announce coach Pat Hill’s extension before the bowl game, mostly because opposing coaches were using his unknown future against the Bulldogs in recruiting. Considering the outcome, does athletic director Thomas Boeh wish he’d waited until after the bowl game to make the extension decision?
“I don’t think so,” Boeh said. “We look at things over a long period of time. It’s not a single game. It’s not even a month. It’s over a period of years. We’ve won games like this. We’ve lost games like this.”
Boeh likes to talk about trending, and while he’s right, it’s important not to knee-jerk individual games, they sure can change the outlook. Instead of the season ending with Fresno State winning eight of the last nine, it ends with a thumping at Nevada, a last-second field goal to beat 4-8 Louisiana Tech, a miracle to beat 3-9 Illinois, and a loss to 7-6 Wyoming.
It’s a small sample, but that’s a trend to nowhere good. It’s all perception, all changed because Fresno State couldn’t gain that yard.
Forget digging in their heels. The anti-Hill folks just poured cement over their boots.
Does this affect the pending negotiations? Could it mean Hill gets a two-year deal instead of, say, five?
“We’ll talk about that later,” Boeh said. “We don’t really use the word negotiation much. We’ll get the guys home and we’ll get through the holidays and then we’ll talk about that.
“(It would have been) nice momentum, but we’re (8-5) and third in the league. We aspire to win every game, but there’s a lot of teams that stayed home this weekend, too, that are done playing already.”
It still hurts, however you say it. This athletic department needed a bowl win, needed something to rally the Hill decision. Instead, it got Wyoming jubilation, and its kicker being congratulated afterward by the other team for a tackle, and its future standing in the corner of the field soaking in the pain.
Instead, the opposition to Fresno State’s present put more bullets in its gun. With help from some Cowboys.