Mountain West has four teams picked

TCU, BYU, Utah and Colorado State have accepted bowl bids.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TCU, BYU, Utah and Colorado State accepted bowl invitations Tuesday, giving the Mountain West Conference four teams in the postseason.
TCU (10-1) will play in the Houston Bowl on Dec. 31 against a Big 12 opponent.
The Mountain West has tie-ins with the Las Vegas, Poinsettia and Emerald bowls -- all games that pay less than the expected $1.2 million payout for the EV1.net Houston Bowl at Reliant Stadium.
The No. 15 Horned Frogs have a nine-game winning streak going into the Dec. 31 bowl game against a Big 12 team. The Southeastern Conference doesn't have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill its spot in Houston, which opened up the at-large spot for TCU.
Coach gets extension
The Horned Frogs also gave coach Gary Patterson a four-year contract extension on Tuesday.
Since beating UNLV 51-3 in their regular season finale Nov. 12, the Frogs have moved up in the last two Bowl Championship Series rankings, advancing four spots to No. 13 -- still one below what is needed to even be considered for one of the four big-money games. The Mountain West doesn't have a guaranteed BCS spot. Officials on Tuesday released a list of 16 teams still under consideration for a BCS bid and TCU was not among them.
BYU snapped a string of three straight seasons without a bowl bid, accepting an invite to the Las Vegas Bowl.
Colorado State will play Navy in the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego on Dec. 22.
A year after Utah played in the Bowl Championship Series, the Utes accepted a bid to the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco, where they could play a Pac-10 team or an Atlantic Coast Conference team.
Music City to get ACC team
The Music City Bowl announced it will take a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference to fill a spot the SEC cannot.
The SEC has eight bowl tie-ins, including sending its champion to the BCS, but only six bowl-eligible teams.
The Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl will be played Dec. 30, with a Big Ten team filling the other spot.
The ACC already was scheduled to start a tie-in to the Music City Bowl in 2006.
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