Texas Christian, 10-2 (MWC) vs Louisiana Tech, 8-4 (WAC) in the 11th (well sort of) SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl. This bowl actually began in 1952 and was intended to match the best military school in the East against the best military school in the West. In 1952, Bolling Air Force Base defeated San Diego Naval Training Center, 35-14 in the inaugural game. The bowl continued through 1955, which pitted Fort Ord (Army) against Pensacola Naval Air Station (USN), this final game was won by the army team, 35-15, after which the game was discontinued.
In 2005, the Bowl was revitalized and true to its military history, Navy took on and pounded Colorado State, 51-30. In 2006 Army was penciled in as the military representative but failed to have the needed number of victories. As a result, the bowl invited NIU (Northern Illinois from the MAC) & TCU (Texas Christian from the MWC). The Bowl conference tie-ins are the Mountain West #2 vs a WAC representative for 2011 and 2012 and Army (if bowl eligible) in 2013.
The SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl’s best game was played in 2008 when 11th ranked TCU took on 9th ranked Boise State. TCU won the game 17-16 and the game had its largest television audience. In fact, it remains the highest rated pre-Christmas bowl game ever on ESPN. Last year’s game was won by San Diego State, who torpedoed Navy, 35-14. Ok… onto the game…
Texas Christian has won seven in a row including a win on the”Blue Field”, 36-35, over Boise State. They, simply put, should be and deserve to be in a better bowl and quite frankly, against a better opponent. I do not have to tell those of you who have played or coached how dangerous this type of thinking can be for a team’s preparation. If the players are hearing and buying into this stuff (which, by the way, I believe is right…. they do deserve to be in a better bowl… with an AQ opponent) then we have a paradox, the players are absolutely right while being dead wrong. I am thinking Gary Patterson has stood on his head on more than one occasion and talked about the need to focus on the task at hand. Coach might say “This is not the Rose Bowl, its not the Big Ten Champion, Wisconsin, and yes, we were behind only once this year when time expired (50-48 to Baylor… the other loss to SMU was an OT affair) but its all irrelevant…. we need to focus on the task at hand. Good luck with that Gary.
Louisiana Tech lost three of its first four games ( Southern Miss 19-17, Houston 35-34, and Mississippi State 26-20 in OT) and then got popped by Hawaii, 44-26. Oh yeah, the Bulldogs have not lost since, 7 wins in a row… just like TCU. La Tech is really close to being 11-1 and one would think that they absolutely believe that this is their chance to make a national statement.
Two teams with seeming different perspectives on this game… it won’t matter……. TCU 31 Louisiana Tech 13
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