Commentary: Sun Bowl in El Paso the place to be for Notre Dame football

EL PASO, Texas — Shhhh. Lower your voice here in the high Chihuahua Desert when talking about the expedited and exasperating complexities of college football’s bowl season.

Speak not of the more “elaborate” destinations and state-of-the-art stadiums where Notre Dame football has historically found itself to ring in a new year.

Resist knocking this fate for the Irish who had College Football Playoff aspirations on Labor Day, but plane tickets to West Texas for Christmas.

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The 90th annual Sun Bowl — now endorsed by Tony the Tiger himself — is no punishment for the 15th-ranked Irish, who will battle No. 21 Oregon State on Friday at Sun Bowl Stadium. Kickoff is set for 2 p.m. EST on CBS.

No, this particular game is a postcard, a throwback to a simpler era of college football when these games were revered and respected, no matter where they're played.

If the Sun Bowl is indeed a consolation prize, Irish fans who made the effort to be here won’t be disappointed, no matter what the scoreboard says Friday.

“We treat people right,” Sun Bowl Executive Director Bernie Olivas said, popping into the media hospitality suite late Wednesday night to casually banter with his volunteers and sneak his first meal of a very busy day. “We know we don’t have Disneyland or Disney World. We don’t have beaches … So we make up for it with hospitality.”

The Sun Bowl, Olivas explained, employs seven people, and leans on its roughly 700 volunteers to get this job done each year. And do they ever. While a collective moan may have been Irish Nation’s initial reaction on Bowl Selection Sunday, pure joy engulfed Olivas and his staff. And the community.

Walk anywhere from the Rio Grande to Scenic Drive high on the edge of the Franklin Mountains and you can feel the civic pride this game generates. There are fancier bowls and, obviously, ones of more consequence. But none of them can be more sincere than the Sun Bowl, or as proud of its history and realistic about its role.

"I remember growing up as a kid and hearing about the Sun Bowl," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said Thursday. "I know this is a lot of our first times being down here, but the tradition, the respect of this game, is something you’re humbled to be a part of. Again, yes, there is an opponent and that competitive spirit when two teams play each other, but there is another piece of being here in El Paso as part of this Sun Bowl that excites our entire program.”

Some of the best experiences in life are unexpected, and that’s where the Sun Bowl rises highest. You’re caught off guard by its authenticity and charm, how it warms the soul with its red southwest landscapes, diverse culture and authentic cuisine.

And anybody who has spent their winters under South Bend’s permacloud can appreciate an unrelenting high desert sun that pierces the bright blue sky.

The Sun Bowl is what a community event feels like, not just a football game. It's a cozier vibe as opposed to Miami, Phoenix or Los Angeles. And in this runaway-train era of college football change, that’s something to be cherished.

As for the game, never mind that the Irish will be without 20 players from this year’s 9-4 campaign who either opted out to focus on NFL Draft preparations or entered the transfer portal to explore other collegiate opportunities.

Among the missing is Notre Dame quarterback/poster boy Sam Hartman, as well as running back Audric Estime fresh off an All-American-caliber season with 1,341 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns.

It’s hard to argue with their reasoning, but the loss of star power dims the actual contest (8-4 Oregon State is pretty much in the same boat with an interim coach guiding the way). But those defections don’t overshadow the event that has shown brightly for nine decades, the past 55 live on CBS. That makes it’s the second-longest continuously televised live sporting event on one network behind only The Master’s.

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This is the second time the Sun Bowl has hosted Notre Dame, 33-17 winners over Miami, Fla., in 2010. That was the first time the Irish played the Hurricanes — once a heated and infamous rivalry — since 1990.

And what a game that was for Olivas, whose staff had to push about 5 inches of snow from the field that morning using folding tables as plows when they couldn’t get their tractor to work.

“We were able to get it off the field,” Olivas remembers with a chuckle, “but there was still snow and ice on all the seats.”

That game remains the most attended Sun Bowl, with 54,021 very chilly spectators.

Now Notre Dame looks to get its revenge against Oregon State, which has won both meetings against the Irish — 2001 Fiesta and 2004 Insight bowls — by a combined score of 79-30.

“When the (ACC) associate commissioner said these are the teams that are available and started off with Notre Dame,” Olivas told the South Bend Tribune earlier this month, “we all kind of looked at each other: 'How did that happen?'”

How indeed. Chalk it up to a perfect storm of on-the-field circumstance (Alabama beating No. 1 Georgia in the SEC title game knocking Florida State out of the playoff) and some boardroom politics. Oh well. Here we are, and El Paso is making the best of it for everybody. As are the teams.

Notre Dame landed Christmas Day to the tune of mariachis and folklorico dancers before being treated to a Texas-style dinner at Indiana Cliffs Ranch.

On Tuesday, the El Paso Rotary Club hosted the players at TOPGOLF for a charity event to help provide Christmas gifts to underprivileged children in the community.

Wednesday, it was a visit to Fort Bliss, home of the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division. Players simulated driving Humvee’s, storming rooms in 2-by-2 cover formation and emptying 60-round digital M4 magazines in target practice.

Irish running back Jadarian Price of “nearby” Dennison, Texas (699 miles away), was one of many players to tuck himself inside an AH-64 Apache helicopter and marvel about its technology and capabilities. His smile was contagious.

Now the Irish take full aim on the Beavers with a fifth 10-win season in the past six years hanging in the balance. That’s important to this team, as is getting a look at the understudies who can help Notre Dame take a bigger step next year when the CFP expands from four to 12 teams.

How the Irish landed in El Paso matters less than where they go from here. Wherever that may be, this Sun Bowl experience should be cherished.

Michael Wanbaugh is sports editor of the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune. He can be reached at mwanbaugh@sbtinfo.com. Follow on Twitter @Mwanbaugh

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Sun Bowl and El Paso shine on Notre Dame football