Who is playing the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl this New Year's Eve? Here are 2025 projections
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The countdown to the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl has hit November in its usual place.
The Pac-12 side (Pac-12 Legacy for this final year) has a fair amount of clarity a month before the Dec. 7 selection date, while the ACC side of the equation is, in typical fashion, as muddled as one would expect from a 17-team conference.
Pac-12 Legacy: Arizona or Arizona State?
While matters can change in the next four Saturdays, Sun Bowl executive director Bernie Olivas thinks Arizona, Arizona State or possibly Cal are good bets to represent Pac-12 Legacy in the final year of the current bowl contract.
Almost all bowl projections at this point have Arizona or Arizona State making the drive in to El Paso for the New Year’s Eve game.
ACC: Jump ball
On the ACC side?
“Everybody’s in a big bunch,” Olivas said, while mentioning Duke, Wake Forest, Florida State, SMU, North Carolina State and possibly even Clemson.
The intriguing team there is SMU, as the Sun Bowl has not had a Texas team since TCU beat USC in 1998.
“They’d be pretty good,” Olivas said of SMU. “They’d bring a lot of people. Having a Texas team in the Sun Bowl would be awesome, but them beating Miami might have moved them up a little.”
The Sun Bowl gets the fifth selection from the Pac-12, while its is in a pool to get fourth through eighth from the ACC. SMU’s upset of Miami moved the Mustangs to 6-3. They have two tough games left, at Cal and at home against No. 15 Louisville.
The Sun Bowl would have a good chance of getting a 7-5 SMU team and some chance of landing the Mustangs, a playoff team last season, if they get to 8-4.
Of note is that SMU plays Cal this regular season, a team Olivas said is a possibility for the Pac-12 Legacy side. Cal is in the ACC now and plays, or has played, SMU and Duke along with a full ACC schedule and the Sun Bowl won’t stage a rematch of a regular season game. Pairing Cal with a conference rival like Florida State that it didn’t play this year is a possibility.
Here are projections following Week 10 of the college football season.
Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl projections
ESPN:
Kyle Bonagura: Duke vs. Arizona State
Mark Schlabach: Pittsburgh vs. Arizona State
USA Today: SMU vs. Arizona
Athlon: SMU vs. Arizona State
Sports Illustrated: Washington State vs. Florida State
College Football News: SMU vs Arizona State
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Who is coming to the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl? Here are projections
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