Of the 53 FBS games scheduled on Saturday, SDSU and Washington is one of only 12 to feature a pair of bowl teams from the 2011 campaign. The Aztecs played in the R+L Carrier New Orleans Bowl en route to an 8-5 season while the Huskies advanced to Valero Alamo Bowl and finished 7-6.
This is just the third all-time meeting between the two schools, with UW owning a 2-0 series lead. In each of the previous encounters, Washington was ranked among the top three in the country at kickoff.
Rocky Long is the first San Diego State coach to lead the team to a bowl game in his inaugural season (2011).
With eight first-year wins in 2011, Rocky Long had one more coaching victory than the two previous SDSU coaches combined (Brady Hoke went 4-8 in 2009 and Chuck Long was 3-9 in 2006).
Rocky Long has 73 victories whole coaching teams in the Mountain West. That is the second-highest total in the history of the conference.
