For Poinsettia Bowl, Everything Came Up Roses

Let's play a quick game: Glance over the pairings in college football's upcoming bowl season. There are 34 bowls this year, meaning a record 68 teams get to extend their season for one more contest. Obviously, the best of these matchups are those that feature two teams that finished the regular season ranked in the top 25 of the final BCS poll. This year, 10 of the bowls feature a matchup of two such teams.

So, in our game, let's look at those 10 bowls and combine the rankings of the participating schools. The game with the lower total is the better bowl matchup. Naturally, the BCS Championship, matching #1 (Oklahoma) + #2 (Florida) for a grand total of 3 points, is the top matchup (and will be as long as the current system is in place). Of the other top tier bowls, there are some great pairings: The Sugar Bowl matches #4 (Alabama) + #6 (Utah) for 10 points. The Fiesta Bowl (Texas vs. Ohio State) and Rose Bowl (USC vs. Penn State) pairings both add up to 13 points. Those are the top 4 bowls for this year. As for the fifth-best matchup, that must surely belong to a prestigious bowl like the Orange or the Cotton, right?

How about the Poinsettia Bowl? This bowl, entering its fifth edition, is a little-sister bowl to the Holiday Bowl, which is played at the same venue, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. This is very similar to the Insight and Fiesta bowls in Arizona, though they don't share the same site. Well, for this year at least, little sister has grown up. The Poinsettia will present undefeated and ninth-ranked Boise State against TCU, which lost only to Oklahoma and Utah and finished #11 in the BCS. That's 20 points in our game, easily besting the totals for the big-sister Holiday Bowl (Oklahoma State vs. Oregon; 30 points), as well as the Orange (Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech; 31 points), Cotton (Texas Tech vs. Mississippi; 32 points), Capital One (Georgia vs. Michigan State; 33 points), and Alamo (Missouri vs. Northwestern; 44 points) bowls.

How did it happen? How did the Poinsettia Bowl upstage the older-sister Holiday Bowl, as well as outflank the 28 other bowls to wind up with this great matchup; a real beaut of a game? I mean, the Poinsettia usually matches the #7 selection from the PAC 10 with the # 3 choice from the WAC. If you got Stanford vs. Fresno State for a matchup, you wouldn't be surprised. But, #9 vs. #11, including one of only three unbeaten teams in the nation? You're kidding, right?

The problem this year is that only five PAC 10 teams qualified for a bowl, leaving the Poinsettia with an open spot. There had been some scuttlebutt before last weekend's championship games, that the Humanitarian Bowl would invite undefeated Ball State, the presumed MAC champion, to play Boise State on the Broncos' home field. Ball State shot down the notion, reasoning that the Cardinals deserved better than for their bowl game to be on the road against a powerful, unbeaten squad. However, that reasoning surely sent the wrong message to the team, which went out and was upset by Buffalo in the MAC title game. The dream matchup was lost. [Ball State (12-1) will play in the GMAC Bowl against Tulsa (10-3), which was upset on its home field by East Carolina in the C-USA title game.]

So, Boise State was left looking for the best matchup it could get. With the Mountain West Conference being so strong at the top this year (in addition to 12-0 Utah, BYU finished 10-2 and is Las Vegas Bowl-bound), TCU "fell" all the way to the San Diego. When Poinsettia Bowl officials approached Boise State about taking on the Horned Frogs, the Broncos jumped at the chance. And an incredible matchup was born.