The elusive all-California bowl
One side effect of the destruction of the Pac-12 and scattering the California schools to the winds is that it increases the chances of a bowl matchup between California teams. The “classic” bowl formula is two winning schools from different conferences meet in a neutral location after the regular season has ended. Of course now with the playoffs, for the top 12 seedings
Has it happened before?
Let’s make a small diff to the code to find out:
diff --git a/vconf/virtualconf.py b/vconf/virtualconf.py
index 2af2b99..cd8c4ec 100644
--- a/vconf/virtualconf.py
+++ b/vconf/virtualconf.py
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ def games_db_query(api_instance, teams, cur_year):
mcc_games = {}
for team_id in teams :
#print("looking for " + teams[team_id])
- all_teams_games = api_instance.get_games(year=cur_year, team = teams[team_id])
+ all_teams_games = api_instance.get_games(year=cur_year, team = teams[team_id], season_type = 'postseason')
for cur_game in all_teams_games :
#print(cur_game)
other_team_id = -1
By adding the season_type parameter we can see bowl games. Running this for the post-1940 “modern” era we get three beauties, all involving Fresno State against Pac-10/12 teams. This makes sense because Fresno State was (a) often pretty good and (b) never in the Pac-10. (They were in the Big West, WAC and Mountain West.)
The All-California Bowls
Title: 1992 Freedom Bowl
Location: Anaheim Stadium, Anaheim, CA
Date: December 29, 1992
Result: Fresno State 24, USC 7
Notable Players: Trent Dilfer, Lorenzo Neal, Tony Boselli, Rob Johnson, Jason Sehorn, Willie McGinest, Brian Williams
Highlights: Fresno State came in with a five game winning streak. They’d scored more than 40 points eight times to be the number one scoring offense in the country. USC came in having lost three of four, with those three being rivalry games to Stanford, UCLA and Notre Dame. Woof. Despite the apparent opposite trajectories USC was an 8 point favorite at kickoff. After scoring first in the second quarter that was it and Fresno reeled off 24 straight points.
The game accounts played up Fresno’s scrappy underdog coming-out party against the overconfident teetering dynasty. USC fired their coach Larry Smith after this game.
Would it change that year’s cup? No. Stanford had a 4-0 record that year, Fresno was only 2-0 without the bowl win.
Sicko Quotient: Very low. Just a real heart-warming red-blooded American bowl game, played in California by California teams. “Fresno State fans formed a caravan down Highway 99.” (R.E. Graswich in The Sacramento Bee, December 30, 1992) That’s poetry, baby. My Highway 99 road trip is still in my future.
Title: 2003 Silicon Valley Classic
Location: Spartan Stadium, San Jose
Date: December 30, 2003
Result: Fresno State 17, UCLA 9
Notable Players: Marcedes Lewis (incredibly, still active in 2024)
Highlights: Fresno State scored their 17 points first and then hung on. UCLA’s last two points were on a safety. The field was described as “messy.”
Would it change that year’s cup? No. Weirdly Fresno didn’t play any California schools that year.
Sicko Quotient: O Wikipedia, sing for us the short life of the Silicon Valley Football Classic:
2002: “After two straight years of the Silicon Valley Football Classic having the lowest ratings of Division I-A bowl games, Fox Sports Net withdrew from its five-year contract with the bowl in November 2002.”
2003: Fresno State appears for the third straight time. It rains. 20,126 show up. “After the 2003 game, the NCAA instituted new rules for the 2004–05 Bowl Season stating that stadiums had to draw at least 70% of their capacity for bowl games in order to continue hosting them.”
2004: “Although the bowl again had tie-ins with the WAC and Pac-10, neither conference had enough eligible teams available. Silicon Valley Bowl officials invited Northern Illinois of the MAC and Troy of the Sun Belt as at-large teams. Both schools were offered no upfront payment to participate and were responsible for buying 8,000 tickets worth a total of $720,000. Game attendance was a series low at 5,494, and a power outage caused a 20-minute delay of kickoff.”
That was it for the Silicon Valley Football Classic. I love the Bay Area but December in the Bay is often outdoor spectator unfriendly. The sun sets in a deep fog at about 5 PM. Dormant moss on shake roofs turns emerald green in the perpetual 90% relative humidity. Plumes of water vapor hang over the Santa Cruz mountains creating a suburban redwood rain forest. 30 inches of precipitation falls in about 85 calendar days concentrated in 5-10 large events. Ask me how I know that red-letter bowl dates are magnets for atmospheric river events.
There is another part of the equation too: At this writing 6 of the 10 biggest companies in the world are headquartered within a few miles of Spartan Stadium. (That’s not counting Oracle, Netflix and Salesforce which are also in striking distance.) You don’t get to that concentration of wealth and industry without a little collateral damage for the vibes industry. Silicon Valley is not a chill place. It’s not a bowl destination kind of place. It’s not a “let’s use some vacation time and just bask in it and take in the game” kind of place.
One of my fondest college football memories is attending the 2012 Pac-12 Championship game at Stanford Stadium. They held it at 5 PM local time on a Friday in a drizzle. It was Palo Alto on the end of the week after Thanksgiving with December work freezes and perf reviews looming. Possibly one of the most get-stuff-done days in the most get-stuff-done spot on earth. Local unemployment rate was probably what… negative 10%? Everyone was working and hiring. The mobile boom was in full ramp. There was no remote work yet. I remember crossing El Camino and thinking of all the cars jammed in 6 lanes how many cared about the game? I felt a little guilty taking the time off myself. It was a great game but attendance was a disappointment. How could it not be.
Title: 2013 Las Vegas Bowl
Location: Sam Boyd Stadium, Whitney, NV
Date: December 21, 2013
Result: USC 45, Fresno State 20
Notable Players: Derek Carr, Davante Adams, Nelson Agholor
Highlights: Derek Carr had a tough time in a big spot. Cody Kessler rolled.
Would it change that year’s cup? Yes! Stanford was 3-1 but had a loss to USC. If USC gets bumped to 3-1 with this win they would take the cup on the first tie-breaker.
Sicko Quotient: A 1/1 Clay Helton game. This was the year that Lane Kiffin got fired on the tarmac (September 28, 2013) then interim coach Ed Orgeron did an OK job but resigned in a huff when Steve Sarkisian was hired for the permanent job (Dec 2, 2013). OC Clay Helton was called upon to coach the bowl game and then was rehired as an assistant, only to be promoted to head coach after Sark’s retirement on addiction issues after completing part of his second season (November 30, 2015). The good news is that everything was nice and stable for USC after that!
Amazingly at this writing in 2024: Sark is in the playoffs, Kiffin just missed the playoffs, Orgeron has a National Championship ring and even Clay Helton has a somewhat secure coaching gig with three straight bowl appearances. (None of those good things happened with USC for any of those coaches of course.)
Points off for this game not being played in California. Wikipedia says the Sam in Sam Boyd Stadium also gave his name to Vegas’s Sam’s Town and was the impresario behind the Mint 400 motorcycle race of Fear and Loathing fame.
After careful consideration the Mythical Most California Bowl Of All Time title goes to that 1992 Freedom Bowl: Trent Dilfer was from Aptos, Rob Johnson was from Newport Beach. Central Valley vs. LA playing in Anaheim with a Northern California outsider vs. Southern California golden boy at the QB positions.