Holiday Bowl rings in the new year on a winning note

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 (17th 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 belonged to the Wildcats, who entered the game riding a five-game winning streak.

SMU out-gained Arizona 328-132 in total yards in the first half as quarterback Kevin Jennings passed for 187 yards alone in the first quarter. The shoe was on the other foot in the second half as the Wildcats out-gained the Mustangs 309-64.

Arizona got on the scoreboards with 2:37 to play in the third quarter as quarterback Noah Fifita connected with receiver Javin Whatley on a 28-yard pass completion. The two-point conversion attempt was no good as the Wildcats moved to score to 24-6.

Arizona dominated the fourth quarter with two touchdowns to climb back in the game and unleash a sea of red in the stands. A 10-yard completion to receiver Tre Spivey and another missed two-point conversion attempt made the score 24-12 with 8:40 to play to set up one of the Holiday Bowl’s trademark exciting finishes.

An interception by SMU stopped another Arizona drive. But the Wildcats got the ball back on a punt and continued their march down the field unabated.

Fifita completed his third touchdown pass of the game with 33 seconds left to tight end Cameron Barmore. But the Wildcats were unable to recover the ensuing onside kick and ran out of time to complete a full circle comeback.

24-19 final.

“It feels great because we don’t talk about the drought anymore after this,” Lashlee said. “Our program has a rich history. Doak Walker played at SMU and won a Heisman, and they’re going to give the Doak Walker Award to a great player on our campus in a month. You know about Eric Dickerson and Craig James and all those guys who played a big Holiday Bowl game. But these guys, this senior class, they brought our program back. It’s either 38 or 39 wins in four years. I know in the last three years we’ve won 31 games, and I’m not great at math, but that means we’re winning more than 10 games a year. For these guys to do that, two of those years were our first two years in the ACC. We won more games in the ACC than anybody in our first two years in the league. These guys have put us back on the national stage with a college playoff berth, a Holiday Bowl win, and just given our program a lot of momentum.”

SMU’s Jennings completed 21 of 32 passing attempts for 278 yards with three interceptions while Fifita completed 28 of 43 passes for 265 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.

Fifita was also active with his feet by rushing for 73 yards on 13 carries. Harden led the Mustangs on the ground with 40 yards on 10 carries and two TD.

Yamir Knight had seven catches for 104 yards to lead SMU receivers while Barmore had five receptions for 61 yards and one TD.

Knight took home the game’s Offensive MVP award while SMU safety Ahmaad Moses earned the Defensive MVP award with 13 tackles and one pass deflection.

The three picks gave Arizona plenty of opportunities to climb back in the game. However, the Mustangs managed to make stops when they had to, including a key turnover on downs.

“Trusting the process has really been my main thing,” Knight said. “Because starting off the season a little shaky – we lost two games out of four, and we were in a 2-2 situation. The team has been resilient. We showed each other love, no matter what, through the ups and downs. We just got through everything. We fought for each other.”

“More games than not, we faced adversity, and we always find a way to push through and just trust our brother, trust the brother next to us, and believe that if I do my job, he’s going to do his job,” Moses said. “We’re going to end up doing something together for us to get to the win, so just fight through. That’s one thing I learned throughout the whole season: that regardless of the outcome, I know that my brother has my back and I have his back.”

“With a month off, you’re really trying to focus on the process,” Brennan said. “It sounds simple and sounds cliché, but it’s not. It’s that time that’s between playing, which also gives you a really great chance. That’s one of the huge values of a bowl game: to get some other guys a chance, to get meaningful reps and get coached, and to get some competition out there. That part of it has been fun. How do you keep the practice environment enthusiastic and energized when you have all these practice opportunities with the game so far away? That’s a challenge.”

Extra points
This year’s game spotlighted four San Diego County natives: redshirt junior receiver Rex Haynes (Cathedral Catholic), freshman defensive back Dajon Hinton (Chandler, Ariz.) and freshman kicker/punter Tyler Prasuhn (Carlsbad) on the Arizona roster and redshirt sophomore running back William Fierro (Bishop’s) on the SMU roster.

Photos by Phillip Brents