2007 Pacific Holiday Bowl in San Diego

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There are three types of people that will be taking part in the 2007 San Diego Holiday Bowl festivities: The people who root for Arizona State University, the people who root for The University of Texas, and the people from San Diego who have no rooting interest in either team, but get to take part in the annual pleasure of being third party sports fans.

Within the structure of Division One College Football there are 5 major bowl games that are grouped together under the label of The Bowl Championship Series. These five bowl games pay the respective schools a significant more amount of money then the other 300 hundred million bowl games around the country.

Next week DiscoverSD.com is having a bowl game between Mesa and Grossmont Community college called The DiscoverSD.com What's Happening in the Gaslamp? Bowl. DiscoverSD.com doesn't know this yet because the NCAA doesn't care about asking permission; they want to have a bowl game with a question mark in the title, and nobody is going to stop them.

The 2007 Holiday Bowl at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium is arguably the granddaddy of all the “meaningless” bowl games. It might be meaningless in the overall scheme of finding out who the best team in the country is, but it does mean something. The game and its preceding events are the most consistent and effective ways the city of San Diego has to promote itself.

The two teams in this year's game find themselves at the same level, but they are coming from two different places. Arizona State is a mid level program on the rise, and Texas is a traditional superpower who had an off year in 2007. The Longhorns of Texas expect to be in the hunt to win it all next year, while the The Sun Devils have enjoyed a successful year by their humble standards under new head coach Dennis Erickson.

Dennis Erickson has always been a successful college coach, but he has never made it at the pro level. With successful stints at University Of Miami, Oregon State, and now a great start Arizona State University, it is assumed he will never go back to the NFL because his time with the Seahawks and 49ers was a disaster. This makes Dennis Erickson a tormented character; he is a genius in a sport that he doesn't care about, and a laughing stock at the level that he would want nothing more than to succeed at.

This is probably what makes Dennis Erickson such a great recruiter. He understands the mentality of wanting to get to the pro level that every one of his recruits shares with him. Years from now, after consistently contending with USC for the PAC Ten Championship, Dennis Erickson will receive another shot to coach on Sunday and he will fail.

Ladies: If you like a guy who is into football, tell him you feel bad for Dennis Erickson because he will never fully appreciate who is, and that the tumultuous cycle he imprisoned by is almost too tragic to watch. The guy you like will tell every friend he knows and they will all want to meet you – immediately.

On the other hand, Texas Head Coach Mack Brown knows he has arguably the best job in college football and that he will never leave. Along with California and Florida, the state of Texas is a top high school football stud factory that has 99% of the state's homegrown talent dreaming of someday playing for the Longhorns.

Example: The Texas phenom Quarterback playing in this year's Holiday Bowl is from the Lone Star State and his name is Colt McCoy. That name is exactly what the Longhorn QB should sound like. Colt McCoy's parents named him that with the intention of him being exactly who is today. When you watch Colt McCoy in the Holiday Bowl this year, you will be watching the quarter-life Texas dream fulfilled.

Think about what it must feel like to be in his shoes, and more importantly try to think about all the lives that have been destroyed because those shoes only have room for one set of feet at a time. Mack Brown (which works as well) benefits from this scenario every year by getting his pick of Colts, and he is completely satisfied sticking with it, unlike his tortured 2007 Holiday Bowl advisory.

Mack Brown, still riding high after winning the National Title in 2005, will not care when the Sun Devils run their high powered offense over Texas's young and inexperienced Defense. He will know that ASU is the better team with better athletes, and that next year will be different because he will have a fresh batch of top recruits and plenty of pro prospect starters back.

Dennis Erickson will not feel the same. He will say all the right things after his sizeable win here in San Diego, and he will know that he will most likely be in the same position next year. He will thank the city of San Diego for the hospitality and then later that weekend he will watch the NFL playoffs while dying inside.

San Diego's annual big college football bash is the greatest consolation prize in collegiate athletics. But this is not a bad thing. In fact, it is exactly what makes The Holiday Bowl great. It allows San Diego residents to sit and watch two communities and the teams that represent them, come into our house from less desirable areas and compete for something that only matters if you look really close.

2007 San Diego Pacific Holiday Bowl Facts:

Date: Thursday, December 27, 2007
Site: Qualcomm Stadium
Kickoff: 5:00pm PST
Conference Match-up: Pac-10 v. Big 12