San Diego State could play bowl game at Snapdragon Stadium
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If things fall just right for the San Diego State Aztecs in the first season of the relaunched Pac-12 Conference, they could be playing in a bowl game in their home stadium.
Local sports officials announced on Thursday that the Poinsettia Bowl is back after going dormant for nearly a decade. It will invite the Pac-12 champion, if that team doesn’t qualify for the College Football Playoff, to play a legacy Pac-12 team.
That means there’s some work to do for the Aztecs, who have been picked by most pundits to finish second behind Boise State in the Pac-12.
If BSU wins the Pac-12 and reaches the CFP, as some pundits project, and the Aztecs have an impressive record, the Aztecs could get an invitation.
The Poinsettia Bowl is set for 4:30 p.m. Dec. 23 at Snapdragon Stadium, with the game to air on The CW.
Details were released Thursday by Sports San Diego, which also announced that the Holiday Bowl will be played at 2 p.m. on Dec. 28, also at Snapdragon Stadium and on The CW. The Holiday Bowl will continue to pair a legacy Pac-12 team against an ACC team. The legacy Pac-12 teams are the 10 schools that bolted to the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 starting with the 2024 football season.
How San Diego State gets there
The Pac-12 returned to life on July 1 and needed to find bowl tie-ins. The Poinsettia Bowl returns to the postseason lineup just as the LA Bowl fades into history after matching the Mountain West champion and a legacy Pac-12 team. Boise State claimed the Mountain West title last season before being routed by Washington at SoFi Stadium.
SDSU and Boise State are two of the five former MW teams to help relaunch the Pac-12. The others are Fresno State, Utah State and Colorado State. They join holdovers Washington State and Oregon State, as well as fellow newcomer Texas State in football and Gonzaga in basketball only.
The Poinsettia Bowl was played from 2005-2016 at Qualcomm Stadium. After the NFL’s Chargers left for Los Angeles in 2017, the Aztecs continued to play at Qualcomm until it was torn down in 2020-21 to make room for the 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium, which opened in 2022.
The Aztecs have played in the Poinsettia Bowl before
The Aztecs returned to the bowl scene for the first time in three seasons when they lost a 49-47 thriller against North Texas in the New Mexico Bowl. The Aztecs had been in position to host the MW championship game, but lost in double overtime at New Mexico in the regular-season finale. Boise State earned the right to host the title game and beat UNLV to claim the LA Bowl berth.
The Aztecs played in the Poinsettia Bowl three times in the span of five seasons. They beat Navy 35-14 in 2010 before taking consecutive losses: 23-6 to BYU in 2012 and 17-16 to Navy in 2014.
SDSU played in a hometown bowl once before that, when it lost 39-38 to Iowa in the 1986 Holiday Bowl.
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Bernie Wilson recently retired from The Associated Press after nearly 41 years, including stops in Spokane, Los Angeles and, for the final 33 years, San Diego. He grew up in Coeur d'Alene and graduated from the University of Idaho.