New Mexico and the University of Texas-San Antonio were in a rush to get to a bowl game.The Roadrunners (6-6, 5-3 C-USA) are eligible for the first time in programs brief six-year history. They won seven games back in 2013, but they were in the final year of reclassifying to the FBS and not eligible to play in the postseason.This season, UTSA won five of its last eight games to finish second in Conference USAs West Division.New Mexico (8-4, 6-2 Mountain West) is bowl-eligible for the second straight year after earning a piece of the Mountain West Mountain Division title.The Lobos led the nation in rushing this season at 361 yards per game. Two players -- Teriyon Gipson and Tyrone Owens -- each topped 1,000 yards rushing. Two others reached the 500-yard mark.The Roadrunners also boast a potent rushing attack with Jarveon Williams, the Roadrunners all-time leading rusher, and Jalen Rhodes. The two combined for 1,883 yards and 18 touchdowns this season.The running games of UTSA and UNM will be on display when the Roadrunners and Lobos clash in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET at University Stadium in Albuquerque, N.M.The architect of the Lobos vaunted triple-option rushing attack is Bob Davie, the one-time Notre Dame head coach. New Mexico compiled 4,431 yards on the ground this season with Gipson and Owens averaging a nations best 9.2 and 8.1 yards per carry.The Roadrunners face a tremendous challenge, USTA head coach Frank Wilson said. We havent seen it all year. We watched it on tape so far. Its a pretty dominant offense. It requires our team to be extremely disciplined in their assignments and things that theyre asked to do to be able to slow down such a potent offense.Wilson, who is in his first year with UTSA, knows more than a little about potent rushing attacks -- he was the running backs coach at LSU under Les Miles for five years before landing in San Antonio.The best way to prepare is just practice, practice and more practice.If someone else gets a little nosy and wants to get the quarterback and not the dive, not the pitch, then we can put ourselves in trouble, Wilson said. So repetition is our greatest asset right now and practice will do that for us.The Roadrunners play a physical brand of football with the goal of dominating in the trenches -- hallmarks of Wilsons LSU teams. He also came to UTSA as one of the best recruiters in the country and was able to immediately upgrade the roster with a solid freshman class and a number of graduate transfers from Baton Rouge.What the Roadrunners have accomplished has not been lost on Davie, who has long-running ties with UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey.Its been a long journey, Davie said, citing the road UTSA has traveled as a start-up program. I have tremendous respect for them because I know how much courage it took and how much foresight it took, particularly at the time they got started and the economy took a little hit. So it took a lot of courage to keep it going. I have great respect for that program.UTSA certainly has earned that respect this season.The Roadrunners feature a balanced attack with not only two rushers over 700 yards, but two receivers, Josh Stewart and Kerry Williams Jr., who have combined for 1,200 yards.Quarterback Dalton Sturm has thrown for 2,052 yards and 18 touchdowns against only five interceptions. He is confidant the Roadrunners will complete this historic season on a high note.I go into each game as if its the biggest game of the season, Sturm said. Its about all of us winning together as a team.Sturms New Mexico counterpart, Austin Apodaca, has completed just 53 passes for just over 650 yards with five touchdowns and two interceptions.On defense, the Roadrunners hold their opponents to 152 yards. But can they control the line and stop the Lobos on the ground?UTSA and UNM have played twice before, splitting a home-and-home series in 2013 and 2014. UTSA won the first meeting (Aug. 31, 2013) in Albuquerque 21-13. New Mexico came back to win on Oct. 4, 2014, 21-9 in San Antonio. Glenn Hubbard Jersey .ca look back at each of the Top 10 stories of 2013. Today, we look back at Boston Strong - a citys recovery from tragedy. Cheap Stitched Athletics Jerseys . -- About a third of the way through the regular season, the Washington Wizards are at . http://www.wholesaleathleticsjerseys.com/mark-mcgwire-jersey/ . The home side created most of the chances but struggled to break down Braunschweigs resilient defence, resulting in the Bundesligas 1,000th scoreless draw. Wholesale Athletics Jerseys Free Shipping . But what about the officials? Every sport has officials and they also have stories about hard work and sacrifice but their accomplishments are seldom recognized by anyone outside their inner circle. Cheap Athletics Jerseys . Third-seeded Murray had the easiest path to victory on New Years Eve, barely breaking a sweat during his 6-0, 6-0 win over 2,129th-ranked Qatari wildcard recipient Mousa Shanan Zayed. LAKEWOOD RANCH, Fla. -- Dermott Brereton hadnt seen anything like the United States Australian Football League nationals tournament, where 40 footy club teams and more than 1,200 players from across the U.S. and Canada converged this past weekend to contest mens and womens championships in six divisions.Brereton, an Australian Football League commentator and former Hawthorn star, is on a surfing holiday in the United States with former teammate Chris Wittman, and the tandem made sure to visit Americas annual festival of Australian rules football during their stay.Im loving it -- absolutely loving it, Brereton said while surveying two games at once. The camaraderie has been wonderful, and you can tell the Americans get a kick out of having a competitive environment like this.While Brereton spoke, Wittman intently shot video of a womens match with his iPhone, impressed by the athleticism and skill. It was a full plate of footy.To see five ovals with [simultaneous] games, you just dont see this in Australia, Wittman said. To see the quality of play and also the womens football is incredible. We just started playing womens football in Australia, and theyre already playing it here!In a way, Australian football has come full circle in America with Brereton and Wittman here to see the progress. After all, they were members of the Hawthorn team that faced the Essendon Bombers in the first pro match ever held in the States -- a 1989 postseason exhibition at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami.For the uninitiated, Australian rules football is contested with 18 players per side on a large oval. It contains elements of rugby and Gaelic football, but also includes aerial play. Teams score by kicking the ball through sets of uprights at the ends of the field. For a more detailed rules overview, click here. The USAFL requires at least nine American players on the field for each team in nationals competition.On the pitch, the Austin Crows captured their second consecutive Division I mens national championship and third in the past four years with a 39-13 win over the Golden Gate Roos. The game was contested in gusty conditions, with almost all the points scored with the wind. The Crows dictated the tempo, took control early, and did enough to disrupt the Roos progress while heading into the wind in the second half.Nolan Cox, older brother of Collingwood Magpies big man Mason Cox, kicked three goals in the final for Austin, which capped an undefeated season. Nolan preceded Mason as a college basketball player at Oklahoma State and took up footy only a couple of years ago after Mason began pursuing an AFL career. It just so happens that Nolan lives in Austin, and he wound up catching on with the Crows.I was just looking for some guys to have a kick, so I looked it up online, Cox said. The experience is awesome, and its very competitive.In case youre wondering, Nolan isnt quite as tall as Mason -- 198 centimeters to 211 (6-foot-6 to 6-11) -- but perhaps the question still should be asked. Does Nolan have interest in trying out for the AFL?Well, he said with a smile, Im 29.On the womens side, the San Francisco Iron Maidens also battled the wind to earn a hard-fought 9-6 win over the six-time defending champion Denver Bulldogs to capture their first Division I national title. For Jess Estrada, it was a chance to see years of hard work come to fruition. Estrada has been playing footy since 2009 and was co-founder of the Iron Maidens when they began play three years later as a sister team to the Roos. To her, the difficult part isnt staying dedicated to training or absorbing physical punishment in games; its all the time spent on organization, administration and everything else that goes into maintaining a club off the field.I dont think you understand how big this is for us, Estrada said. We started in 2012 and put so many hours into this. It takes so much to build a team, and we just beat the six-time champions. It blows my mind.U.S. womens national team captain Hallie Adrian initially balked at the idea of playing Aussie football eight years ago. She had played college basketball at Texas State and wasnt interested in an outdoor game or a kicking sport. But when she moved to Denver, an acquaintance convinced her that footy would be a good way to make friennds in a new town.dddddddddddd Turns out she liked hitting people, developed a passion for the game, and became an integral member of those six Bulldogs championship teams.I think I was meant to play a tackle sport, Adrian said. I think a lot of us are adrenaline junkies. Afterward, you feel [the bumps and bruises], but during the game, my mind is on nothing but footy.Eight womens teams participated at this years national tournament, and approximately 250 female players across the country are affiliated with USAFL clubs. Its a modest number -- but a far cry from 2010, when Estrada and a few teammates had to fly to San Diego just to put together a 5-on-5 game.Its absolutely insane, Estrada said. Now we have two divisions. We have commentators. I can watch myself on [the web stream]. It means so much that this sport really supports womens growth.U.S. womens national team coach Leigh Barnes said American clubs that rely too heavily on Australians arent able to have staying power. They might thrive for a while, but it isnt an effective model for sustained success. In order to win consistently at the USAFLs top levels, he said clubs need to be able to continually recruit and develop local players. Barnes speaks from experience, as he helped found the Golden Gate AFL in 2001. Today, the GGAFL boasts five mens and three womens teams and sends the Iron Maidens and Roos to the nationals each year.Youre only as good as your weakest American, Barnes said. If you rely too much on Australians, the quality of your team suffers.Former Sydney Swans and Fitzroy Lions player John Ironmonger has been involved with footy in America for nearly two decades, and in 1998 he attended the second USAFL nationals in Cincinnati. Although there were only eight teams, he said the event was a great weekend of football for an Aussie who was homesick. He recalls having difficulty at first recruiting Americans to the Roos and the GGAFL. It seemed that when Ironmonger tried to describe the sport, potential recruits imagined something along the lines of American football played without safety equipment -- with players recklessly flying all over the place and initiating hits with their heads. Perhaps the thought of combating the 200-centimeter, 118-kilogram Ironmonger (thats 6-foot-7, 260 pounds here in the States) struck some fear as well.At first, it was really hard to get Americans to show up, because they would hear tackle with no pads, said Ironmonger, now an assistant coach for the U.S. womens national team. But if you could get them to show up, you usually had them hooked.One of the people who has worked hard to hook Americans on footy is Perth businessman Tony Fairhead, a longtime member of a USAFL advisory board that includes AFL notables Paul Roos, Peter Schwab and Wayne Jackson. Fairhead helped institute a player exchange program between Australia and the U.S. a decade ago. Aussie players come to the U.S. to teach the game, and Americans go to Australia to learn it. The goal isnt just to teach rules and strategy, but also how to build and maintain a football club in a nation whose sports structure revolves instead around college and high school sports.Its goodwill, Fairhead said. We also try to develop the players as club men and coaches. Thats the model they have to learn in order to be self-sufficient.Meantime, the USAFL is already looking ahead to 2017, and San Diego has been announced as next years tournament host. The national teams are focusing on the 2017 International Cup, a tournament held every three years in Melbourne and contested by approximately 20 national teams -- not including Australia.Next year will mark the third time women have competed at the International Cup. The U.S. women have placed third in each of the previous events, and Canada is the defending champion. The mens tournament began in 2002, and the defending champion is Papua New Guinea. The best American finish was third in 2005 -- something U.S. mens coach Tom Ellis expects to improve this time around.Im quietly confident we can go to Australia, make a run at the title, make some noise, and open some eyes to how good the game is here, Ellis said. Jerseys Wholesale Cheap Jerseys Store Jerseys From China Cheap Authentic Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Cheap Jerseys China ' ' '