Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl: Utes and Mountaineers Face Off in the historic Cotton Bowl will play host to Utah and West Virginia for Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl.\u00a0It will\u00a0be a fun game to watch as fans recover from their Christmas festivities.\u00a0Both teams are a little worse for the wear with numerous injuries. Here is what you need to know.<\/p>\n
Teams: Utah (6-6, Pac-12) vs West Virginia (7-5, Big 12)<\/p>\n
Date: Tuesday, December 26<\/p>\n
Game Time: 1:30 pm EST\/ 12:30 pm CST<\/p>\n
Venue: The Cotton Bowl, Dallas, Texas<\/p>\n
Network: ESPN<\/p>\n
Follow along on Twitter: @HODBowl @WVUfootball @Utah_Football<\/p>\n
Coach Dana Holgorsen<\/strong> and the fast-paced\u00a0Mountaineers averaged 485.2 yards a game during the regular season.\u00a0 Unfortunately, West Virginia will be without QB Will Grier<\/a><\/strong> as he recovers from a finger injury.\u00a0 Never fear their backup QB Chris Chugunov<\/a><\/strong> will have two key offensive components\u00a0RB Justin Crawford<\/a><\/strong> and WR David Sills<\/a><\/strong>. Crawford had 191 carries 1,060 yards as well as 7 touchdowns.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Sills had 60 receptions, 980 yards, and 18 touchdowns. Holgorsen talked about Chugunoz at the presser on Christmas Eve\u00a0“We have all of about eight practices, in all honesty, it has been good for us. Our quarterback has been here for three years, so he knows the offense. The biggest thing is understanding he is the starting quarterback and he has used the practices to develop timing with his wide receivers…We are at a better place than we were a few weeks ago.” The biggest obstacle will be the\u00a0Mountaineer defense which struggled to stop the run this season, which could bode well for the Utes.<\/p>\n Utah started the 2017 regular season strong, they even made it into polls by October.\u00a0 Then they hit the skids and lost several close games.\u00a0 Despite the struggles to win games late in the season, the Utes ground game was strong.\u00a0 was lead by their 1,000+ yard RB Zack Moss<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Although, Utah is just as banged up as West Virginia.\u00a0 There has been speculation\u00a0if their quarterback\u00a0Tyler Huntley <\/strong><\/a>will be ready for the game.\u00a0 Here is what Coach Kyle Whittingham had to say\u00a0 “He is 100 percent, but we have to get him a little bit bigger in the offseason. We think he is a tremendous player, he was second in the Pac 12 in offense as a true sophomore, his future is bright, but he has to put some meat on that body.\u201d\u00a0 The Utes\u00a0have won 10 of their 11 bowl games under Whittingham.<\/p>\n In 2014 the bowl game dedicated itself to honoring\u00a0the First Responders who have sacrificed their lives while protecting their communities.\u00a0 One of their main events was held in November and was a partnership with The Guns and Hoses Foundation of North Texas.\u00a0 Together\u00a0they hosted the second annual stair climb (over 3,100 steps) in the Cotton Bowl Stadium.\u00a0This Climb for Community honors the first responders and raises money to help support the loved ones left behind.<\/p>\n People complain that there are too many meaningless bowl games.\u00a0 There are no meaningless bowl games. Every team that gets a bowl bid gets an extended season.\u00a0 The coaches get more practices with their team.\u00a0 The fans get another chance to cheer.\u00a0 Some of the bowl games may not be as prestigious as others but there are no meaningless bowl games.\u00a0 Last year North Texas and Army put on a great show at the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl.\u00a0 Here is hoping that Utah and West Virginia give us a good game.\u00a0 For what it is worth this game was ranked the 27th best bowl game<\/a> by our own Jason Rhea.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl: Utes and Mountaineers Face Off Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl: Utes and Mountaineers Face Off in the historic Cotton Bowl will play host to Utah and West Virginia for Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl.\u00a0It will\u00a0be a fun game to watch as fans recover from their Christmas festivities.\u00a0Both teams are a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1643,"featured_media":11978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18,2828,2831,2830,2832,34,2512,318,237,2827,1290],"class_list":["post-11932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-big-12","tag-chris-chugunov","tag-dana-holgorsen","tag-david-sills","tag-kyle-whittingham","tag-pac-12","tag-tyler-huntley","tag-utah-utes","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers","tag-will-grier","tag-zaxbys-heart-of-dallas-bowl"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1643"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Utah Utes<\/h3>\n
A Bowl Game For A Cause<\/h3>\n
Too Many Bowl Games<\/h3>\n