Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl

Matchup: Cal vs Texas. Two middling 7-5 power conference teams get together for a middling bowl game that is taking prime real estate on the ESPN bowl schedule.

Matchup Pedigree: Best so far. Texas is one of the elite programs in the sport despite its down years this year and last. Cal is a solid Pac-12 program that probably should have been in the BCS in 2004 (over Texas) and was USC's main challenger for much of the 2000s before the rise of Oregon.

Locale: Top-level. Having been to this bowl game twice previously, it is good. The stadium is nice if not state of the art and the weather is great. Crisp, cool, clear air with no rain forthcoming. Doesn't get much better for December nighttime football.

Entertainment Value: Eh. Not much this year. Texas is bad on offense and great on defense. Cal is good on defense and inconsistent at best on offense. This could easily devolve into a 17-14 game or a festival of turnovers.

Corporate Nonsense: Uh. What? This is yet another mismatched sponsor. For profit online higher education? Don't these guys know that much of the college football fanbase is college graduates? And that those college graduates either have no need for online for profit education, or, if needed, would avoid it anyway because they are university elitists. Even being headquartered in San Diego, this is a dumb sponsor, but if anyone has learned anything in my bowl previews thus far, its that most bowl games have a dumb sponsor.

Bowl Pedigree: One of the better, but falling fast. For a long time, this game hosted the WAC champion when the WAC was the only non-ACC, Pac-10, Big Ten, SWC, SEC or Big 8 conference of value at all. Heck, it even got to crown BYU National Champion in 1984. After dropping the WAC tie-in, the game matched the second pick from the Pac-10 and the 3^rd from the Big 12. This also got great matchups. In 1998 Arizona sealed a 12-1 season by beating defending National Champ Nebraska. It got Oregon, Kansas St., Oklahoma St., Texas, Washington and Washington St. when they were top 10 teams. Then, money talked and the Alamo Bowl bought that matchup a couple of years ago. The result has been falling prestige. Last year was a regular season rematch between Nebraska and Washington. This year, two 7-5 teams at a bowl that, before last season, had only had one five loss team since the Big 12/Pac-10 matchup began (Arizona St. in 2002 when the Pac-12 sent two teams to the BCS). Now, the Holiday Bowl is just another game. Some years it will improve, but only when the Pac-12 doesn't get two into the BCS.

Game Prediction: The Texas defense is going to force the mistake prone Cal offense into lots of turnovers. Despite a few turnovers of its own, Texas will win easily.

Texas 27, Cal 12

Should you watch: Check the score. This game isn't all that important and it's likely to be a 3-hour infomercial for the Longhorn Network. If it's close late, it's worth watching. If not, don't bother, especially since the process of getting to whatever the 4^th quarter score is will likely be ugly and painful.