It's official: The Spartans will have to battle the elements, in addition to a hostile crowd and thin air, in their bowl game against New Mexico.


In case you haven't heard there's currently snow on the ground in Albuquerque and it will almost certainly be in the freezing range at game time. I suppose this can't be good news, but it's probably not that big of a deal considering New Mexico doesn't have to play in these conditions much, either. An informal count turns up roughly 19 players that grew up playing in games affected by snow, and most of them are from Albuquerque. Of course, that's 18 more than SJSU has, but our kids are mostly Northern Californians that can play in anything ;). The Albuqurque paper seems willing to call it a push.


More important than the weather, though, will be how New Mexico's freshman starting QB readjusts to his playing time. Apparently, he was pretty solid during a three-game winning streak (against the dregs of the MWC) but got hurt and hasn't played for over a month. We'll see.


The Spartans, on the other hand, will be hoping for the resurgence of Yonus Davis, who Mark Purdy columizes, unfortunately, it appears, from San Jose. I hope this doesn't mean we will be limited to game coverage from the Merc.


On the plus side, the Spartans' beat writer appears to be writing multiple stories, including this notebook.


One thing I love about bowl season (I actually don't, but this is my first experience caring) is all the stuff other than the game that goes on. So far, SJSU is holding its own, splitting a cooking/dancing contest with the heavily favoried Lobos, who won the chili-cookoff portion.


The winner of that contest only got bragging rights, but Saturday's winner gets this trophy, which would great in the Simpkins Center.