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Nevada’s Arizona Bowl win wasn’t on national TV, but it had a pretty great finish

The intra-Mountain West bowl came down to a pretty exciting final minute.

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Did you watch the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl? Probably not, because it wasn't really even on TV, and the commissioner of the conference whose teams were competing in the game called it "a travesty."

But we watched it, and it actually wasn't bad! It came down to a back-and-forth ending, with Nevada emerging with a 28-23 win over Colorado State.

The Rams kicked a late field goal to take a 23-22 lead over the Wolf Pack. But Nevada came back and punched in a go-ahead touchdown on this James Butler run with 1:06 to play.

Butler finished the game with 189 yards rushing and both of Nevada's offensive touchdowns.

That left Colorado State needing to drive the length of the field and score a touchdown in about a minute. Nick Stevens did a pretty good job, completing six passes for 78 yards to go from the CSU 12-yard-line to the Nevada 12-yard-line. But with under 10 seconds left, he completed a pass to Jordon Vaden on the sideline, and instead of getting out of bounds, Vaden tried to cut upfield:

If Vaden had gotten out of bounds, we would've gotten one last shot at the end zone. Instead, he was wrangled down in the field of play, the clock ran, and the game ended.

So Nevada took the 28-23 win, and the Wolf Pack finally has its first win of the post-Chris Ault era. Even the non-televised bowl games between teams from the same conference are good! More bowl games are good!