One day after falling to Stanford in the Pac-12 Championship game, the Arizona State Sun Devils accepted a bid to play in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego on Dec. 30.
The 10-3 Sun Devils will square off against a 7-5 Texas Tech squad that finished sixth overall in Big 12 conference play. The Holiday Bowl is supposed to pit the No. 3 Pac-12 selection against the No. 5 Big 12 selection, but there's always a bit of shuffling that can change these matchups.
The Big 12 had two teams selected for BCS bowl games in Baylor and Oklahoma, which means each Big 12 school will slide up one bowl slot. Thus, the Big 12's sixth-place finisher, the Red Raiders, will play in the Big 12's fifth bowl slot which is the Holiday Bowl.
As for the Pac-12, the conference only had one of its three BCS-eligible teams (Stanford, Oregon and Arizona State) selected for a spot in a BCS bowl game. Stanford will compete in the Rose Bowl as the conference's BCS automatic qualifier.
The No. 10 Oregon Ducks were not selected as a BCS at-large team, and the Alamo Bowl committee chose the Ducks over the Sun Devils to square off with Texas on Dec. 30. After Oregon was selected by the Alamo Bowl, the Holiday Bowl committee was obligated to offer Arizona State a bowl bid.
The Sun Devils won seven out of their last eight games this season and earned the program's first Pac-12 South title under second-year head coach Todd Graham. In contrast, the Red Raiders began their season 7-0, but dropped their final five games to conclude the season at 7-5 under first-year coach Kliff Kingsbury.
A Big 12 team has defeated a Pac-10/12 team in three of the last four Holiday Bowl matchups including last year when the Baylor Bears took down the UCLA Bruins by a final score of 49-26.