Foster Farms Bowl 'looked' at pitting Pac-12 foes UCLA and Washington
The Foster Farms Bowl thought about making the 2015 game a matchup of Pac-12 teams.
The bowl's executive director told the Los Angeles Times that the game looked at Washington play UCLA. Washington ended up in the Heart of Dallas Bowl vs. Southern Miss. UCLA is playing 5-7 Nebraska in the Foster Farms Bowl.
"We looked very hard at the possibility of trying to put UCLA against Washington, because they hadn't played each other this year," Gary Cavalli told the Times.
The Arizona Bowl, a new bowl for 2015, has Nevada and Colorado State. Both teams are in the Mountain West Conference and also didn't play each other in 2015. Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson issued a strongly worded statement condemning the Arizona Bowl matchup after the bowl pairings were announced on Sunday.
Cavalli said he didn't understand the Mountain West's frustration.
"That's why I don't really get this whole fuss about the Mountain West," he said. "Those two teams didn't play each other, they're two deserving teams, and I would think they would be happy that they found a nice home in the Arizona Bowl."
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Nebraska is heading to a bowl game at 5-7 because there were 77 teams at .500 or better in 2015 for 80 bowl spots. Three 5-7 teams got to go to bowls based off Academic Progress Rate. The Foster Farms Bowl has an agreement with the Big Ten and Pac-12. Thompson said he wanted all of the .500 or better teams to be chosen for bowl games first, leaving the three 5-7 teams available to fill in the gaps.
While a matchup of UCLA and Washington would have been untraditional, to say the least, it might have been a bigger draw for the bowl game. It's a much closer trip from Washington to the San Francisco area than it is from Nebraska. While Nebraska fans travel well, can you blame them for not wanting to go to a bowl game that their team only earned because of a lack of qualifying teams?
The Foster Farms Bowl kicks off at 9:15 p.m. ET on Dec. 26.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
