2012 Poinsettia Bowl - some observations on a poor game

The first bowl game I've managed to watch was the Poinsettia Bowl and I'm not sure I should have bothered. Frankly it was a very poor game. Here's a few observations on it:

• San Diego State should have been at least 10 points up at half-time instead of just 3. In the first half BYU's offence was awful (it wasn't much better in the 2nd half) but San Diego State's wasn't much better.
• In the 2nd half BYU benefited from much better field position, mainly because their defence took over. That was the difference between the two teams - BYU's defence in the second half won the game.
• BYU's punter also made a significant contribution with several punts pinning the Aztecs inside their own 10 yard line in the 2nd half.  This gave BYU a huge advantage with field position in the 2nd half.
• Kyle Van Noy looks a hell of a player. He always seemed to be at the centre of any significant plays BYU's defence made.
• One thing I kept noticing during the game was that ESPN didn't show many shots of the crowd. Any crowd shots always seemed to be close ups of small groups and the aerial shots were always from a distance. Was this deliberate? The crowd was around 35,000 (1) in a stadium which holds twice that so maybe the bowl didn't want shots of a half empty stadium shown on TV.