LOS ANGELES (ABC4 Sports) – Fresh off winning its first Mountain West Conference Championship, the Utah State football team will take on Oregon State from the Pac-12 in the inaugural Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl at the new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles December 18th.

The game will be televised at 1:30 p.m. on ABC4.

“We are beyond excited for this team to get the opportunity to play one more game,” said USU head coach Blake Anderson. “I am so proud of what our players and staff have accomplished, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate this unbelievable season than by representing the Mountain West as its conference champion in the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl.”

The Aggies (10-3) crushed San Diego State in the Mountain West Championship Game on Saturday behind four touchdown passes from Logan Bonner to earn the automatic bid.

“On behalf of Utah State University, we are thrilled to represent the Mountain West as conference champions against an outstanding opponent in the 2021 Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl”, said USU athletic director John Hartwell. “I’m excited for our student-athletes to experience another bowl game and we look forward to the hospitality of Southern California.”

Oregon State (7-5) finished third in the Pac-12 North, but defeated 10th-ranked Utah in Corvallis in October.

This will be Utah State’s 15th overall bowl game appearance. The Aggies finished 1-5 this season, but new head coach Blake Anderson engineered a remarkable turnaround to win 10 games for just the fourth time in program history.

Utah State and Oregon State will be meeting for the fourth time in series history, and for the first time since 1998, as the Beavers have won each of the previous three meetings. This will be the first time USU has played a Pac-12 opponent in a bowl game and just the second time it has faced a Power 5 opponent as USU lost to Baylor 24-9 in the 1961 Gotham Bowl, held at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, New York.

There are two common opponents between Utah State and Oregon State this season in Hawai’i and Washington State. USU won both of those games as it posted a season-opening 26-23 road win against the Cougars and a 51-31 home win against the Rainbow Warriors. OSU went 1-1 against those two opponents as it defeated UH at home 45-27 and lost at WSU 31-24.