One day removed from a flooding downpour in Mission Valley, the 46th annual Holiday Bowl enjoyed partly cloudy skies and little to no precipitation in its first title sponsorship under Trust & Will.
The white-clad Arizona Wildcats, representing the Pac-12 but now a member of the Big-12, were more heavily supported in the stands given the school’s location in Tucson while the blue-clad SMU Mustangs, representing the Atlantic Coast Conference, were cheered on by a smaller but no less vocal legion of fans.
The game — the region’s top college football event annually — attracted a near sellout crowd of 30,602 fans in its second nod at Snapdragon Stadium, built by San Diego State University to replace Qualcomm Stadium.
The Mustangs had appeared in the 1980 bowl game against BYU while the Wildcats defeated Nebraska, 23-20, in the 1998 edition of the Holiday Bowl that earned notoriety as ESPN’s most watched bowl game ever at that time.
Arizona entered the game, the first Holiday Bowl contest played in January, ranked 21st in the national AP poll (17thth in the College Football Playoff rankings) after finishing fifth deep in the 16-team Big 12 standings.
Dallas-based SMU was unranked after finishing fifth deep in the 17-team ACC standings.
The matchup proved to be one of halves as the Mustangs galloped to a 24-0 halftime lead before being outscored 19-0 in the second half while managing to hold onto a 24-19 victory.
Both teams finished the season with 9-4 records.
“We’re just very thankful here to get a win and win the Holiday Bowl,” SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee said. “It’s the first bowl we’ve won in a while here at SMU, and the second time we’ve got to come to this great bowl. This was a fantastic week for our student-athletes, for our program, for our fan base, and obviously, we found a way to get a win against a Top 20 team we have a lot of respect for.
“We couldn’t have played much better in the first half. Nobody has done that to Arizona’s defense all year … And they just played lights out. About the only blip was that we had to settle for a field goal on that last drive of the first half. We played excellently. Then you go to the second half, our defense kept playing really well, forcing the turnovers, and more fourth-down stops. You’ve got to give them credit. You saw in the second half what they’ve done to most people defensively all year.”
The ‘Cats had a rare chance to finish with a 10-win season.
“If you’re watching bowl games anywhere right now, turnovers and takeaways are dominating the landscape, and that comes down to executing at a high level,” Arizona head coach Brent Brennan said. “That’s the red line for us. If you’re watching college football games right now, teams that can take care of the football in these bowl games and play clean have a chance to get the results they want.”
Defense was a season-long strength for both teams. But it evaporated at times in last Friday’s game.
The Wildcats’ top three defensive leaders opted out of the Holiday Bowl to prepare for the upcoming NFL Draft. The defensive drain proved crucial as the Mustangs galloped to a 24-0 lead.
SMU’s defense ranked third nationally in takeaways (27) and finished in the top 10 in both fumbles recovered and interceptions. But the second half proved problematic with Arizona out-scoring the Mustangs 19-0 before running out of time to complete a full comeback.
SMU wasted little time in taking a 7-0 lead as tight end Matthew Hibner hauled in an 80-yard catch and carry down the sideline — the longest pass play in Holiday Bowl history — before falling just short of paydirt at the one-yard line. Running back T.J. Harden took the final plunge into the end zone and place-kicker Sam Keltner supplied the extra-point conversion with just 1:02 elapsed off the score clock.
Harden scored on a three-yard run with 4:16 to play in the opening quarter to double the SMU lead to 14-0.
The Mustangs went up 21-0 following a one-yard score by tight end Stone Erby with 9:33 remaining in the first half. Keltner tacked on a 24-yard field goal with 28 seconds to play before halftime to roar in front 24-0.
That would be the last time SMU would score in the game.
If the first half belonged to the Mustangs, the second half clearly
