The Bears and the Bruins will fight tooth and claw for this year’s Holiday Bowl victory as Baylor University and UCLA take the field Thursday evening in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium.
One thing's for sure about this college football game: there will be no national championship at stake.
The 35th annual Holiday Bowl, like its predecessors, won’t feature any of the top teams in the country. UCLA is ranked 17th in the country, while the Baylor Bears are unranked. Although Baylor can claim one major upset this season against Kansas State, it has an otherwise unimpressive 7-5 record.
But Mark Neville, one of the directors of the bowl game, said what the game may lack in top-10 prestige, it'll make up for in high-scoring fireworks.
"Baylor has the highest-ranked offense in the country, and their defense is ranked 119th,” said Neville. “So you put those two together and that's a perfect formula for a high-scoring football game."
This will be San Diego’s second college bowl game in one week. Last Thursday Brigham Young University defeated the San Diego State Aztecs 23-6 in the Poinsettia Bowl.
Both bowl games are run by the San Diego Bowl Game Association. It's a non-profit group that says its games are profitable for the region. They said last year the two football games had a combined $26 million impact on the San Diego economy.
The Holiday Bowl begins 6:45 p.m. Thursday night. Television coverage will be on ESPN.
