UCLA Football: Bruins to Face Pitt Panthers in Sun Bowl
UCLA Football: Bruins to Face Pitt Panthers in Sun Bowl
UCLA's back-to-back losses to Arizona and Southern Cal results in Bruins going to El Paso.
Is the glass half-full or half-empty? That’s a question Bruin fans may be asking this afternoon as UCLA has found out the team will head to El Paso to play in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl.
On one hand, the Bruins look like they will finally play in a bowl game under Chip Kelly. Sure, they were invited to play in the Holiday Bowl last season, but the game was cancelled hours before game time due to COVID protocols. On the other hand, UCLA has fallen to the worst possible bowl after Southern Cal received an at-large bid to play Tulane in the Cotton Bowl earlier today.
The Washington Huskies were selected to go to the Alamo Bowl while Oregon will be playing in the Holiday Bowl.
That gave the Las Vegas Bowl a choice between UCLA and Oregon State. The Beavers are heading to Vegas. As a result, the Bruins will be heading to El Paso where they will play the Pitt Panthers.
Pitt finished the season in 2nd place behind North Carolina in the ACC Coastal Conference with an 8-4 overall record and a 5-3 conference record. Pitt played three ranked teams this season and lost to two of them. In week two, they lost to Tennessee, 34-27. Later, they lost to North Carolina, 42-24. They did manage to defeat Syracuse, 19-9 when the Orange were ranked 20th.
The Panthers are led by a foe familiar to UCLA. The Panthers’ starting quarterback is former Southern Cal QB Kedon Slovis who transferred to Pitt after last season.
The Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl will kickoff at 11:00 am PT on Friday, December 30 and the game will be broadcast on CBS.
Go Bruins!!!
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The last Sun Bowl I remember we won I think 6-3. So that's encouraging. OTOH no way am I going to ... El Paso? And it's especially galling we have to watch Utah get the Rose Bowl. At least $C got bounced I guess.
Meh. My family will not be making the trip for this bowl. Now, Vegas, that woulda been fun :-)