Bowl berth is Bruin for Bulldogs

By Eddie Hughes

For the fifth straight year, Pat Hill’s Fresno State football team is going bowling—probably.

The Bulldogs will play UCLA on Dec. 30 in the fourth annual Silicon Valley Football Classic as long as one condition is met—two teams from the Big 12 Conference must go to Bowl Championship Series games. The top eight teams, determined by a mathematical formula, receive bids to BCS bowl games.

Fresno State (8-5, 6-2 WAC) and UCLA (6-6, 4-4 Pac-10) both accepted invitations to the bowl game Tuesday.

“ We couldn’t ask for a better match-up than that in the state of California,” Hill said.

“ When you’re playing a school like UCLA, you’re playing a school with rich tradition.”

Fresno State is 0-6 all-time against the Bruins, with the most recent loss coming in 2000 when UCLA won 24-21 at the Rose Bowl. All six meetings have been at UCLA.

“ We expect that this is going to be a very tight contest,” UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said.

Jay Key, executive director of the Silicon Valley bowl, announced Tuesday that the Bulldogs were chosen to represent the Western Athletic Conference for the fourth straight season. He said the finalists from the Pac-10 were UCLA and Washington.

Fresno State beat Georgia Tech 30-21 in the 2002 Silicon Valley bowl, lost to Michigan State 44-35 in the 2001 game and lost to Air Force 37-34 in 2000.

The Bulldogs become the fourth Western Athletic Conference team to get a bowl bid.

First-place Boise State (No. 18 in the nation) is set to play No. 19 Texas Christian in the inaugural Fort Worth Bowl, Key said. He said Tulsa, who won the second-place tiebreaker with the Bulldogs because of its win over Hawaii, is set to meet Georgia Tech in the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho. Hawaii plays Houston in its hometown Hawaii Bowl.

In the event that only one team from the Big 12 goes to a BCS bowl game, representatives from the Silicon Valley bowl said Tulsa would then likely get the WAC’s bid over Fresno State but it would have to be discussed. But Silicon Valley bowl representatives said they are confident Fresno State will play UCLA in the game.

The Big 12 championship on Saturday pits Oklahoma against Kansas State. Oklahoma is ranked No. 1 in the BCS rankings and Texas is No. 6, followed by Kansas State at No. 15.

“ Playing a BCS school in a bowl game is a great reward for a very good season,” Hill said in a press release. “This team deserves a lot of credit for keeping it together and driving for this bowl berth.”