Poinsettia Bowl Preview

As promised earlier today, Todd & I will be previewing all 3,287,298 bowl games (in chronological order.) We'll give you some basic stats on the bowl, as well some random info about the matchup, the teams that each of us are endorsing for the win and as an added bonus...we'll give you the "Irrational Bama Fan's" assessment of who you should be cheering for or against depending on the situation.

 vs.

Full name: San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Match up: Mountain West #2 vs. At large
Teams: TCU vs. Northern Illinois
Location: San Diego, CA
Date/Time: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - 7:00 p.m. (central)
Venue: Qualcomm Stadium
Years in existence: 2
Per Team Payout: $750,000

Endorsements:

Todd: If ever there was a bowl game stacked in the favor of one conference, it's gotta be the Poinsettia Bowl.  Where else are you going to see a conference #2 selection facing an at large opponent outside of the BCS.  Even though Garrett Wolfe could likely top 2000 yards on the season with this game (he needs 101 yds to top it, and he's averaging 158.3 ypg), I'm going to have to go with TCU on this one.  The Huskies have some close conference losses that's put them at 7-5 (5-3) while TCU is at 10-2 (6-2) with the two being back to back losses to BYU and Utah early in the season.

Nico: TCU was the early season media darling candidate for '06 "BCS buster," but losses to 2/3 of the DI teams in the state of Utah soured the lofty aspiration of a $17,000,000 payout. I'm cheering for TCU because their mascot (which isn't actually a frog) can shoot a three foot stream of noxious blood from its eyes. How can you cheer against that?

Irrational Bama Fan: I don't even need to explain this one. In case you forgot though, the Huskies handed Bama one of their most stunning losses in recent history. TCU also gets my support due to Coach Bryant's relationship with TCU player Kent Waldrep.