Holiday Bowl watch: Outcome of ACC championship game could impact matchup

The SDCCU Holiday Bowl has been inviting teams from the Pac-12 to town for more than two decades.

This is the first year a team from the ACC will be invited to the bowl, appearing under an arrangement that extends through the 2025 season.

That explains why Holiday Bowl CEO Mark Neville found himself in Charlotte, N.C., on the eve of the ACC championship game between No. 15 Pitt (10-2) and No. 16 Wake Forest (10-2).

Neville rubbed elbows Friday with conference officials, ADs and coaches, among others, at the conference’s Night of Honors event.

“We know the Pac-12 really well because we’ve been with them so long,” Neville said Friday night by phone. “It’s a great opportunity to see a lot of people, especially since we don’t know everybody all that well.”

Neville will watch Saturday’s championship game, which kicks off at 5 p.m. on ABC, with particular interest.

“There are four teams that are in our picture in the conference,” Neville said. “As of tomorrow night, there will be three. The winner will go off to a CFP game and the other three will be in our pool.”

The other two teams are No. 18 North Carolina State (9-3) and No. 20 Clemson (9-4).

On Sunday morning, Neville will get on a Zoom call from his hotel room with Gator Bowl executive director Greg McGarrity, Cheez-It Bowl executive director Steve Hogan and an ACC representative.

“Three teams in the pool and three bowl games for them,” Neville said.

The bowls would hope to come to some meeting of the minds before they Zoom.

“The spirit of it is to make it such that it works the best for each of the three bowl games and each of the three teams,” Neville said.

Among the considerations for each bowl are things like geography, repeating a recent bowl appearance and avoiding a rematch from a regular season game.

Location for the ACC schools isn’t as significant for the Holiday Bowl as the Gator and Cheez-It (which are both located in Florida) since everyone would have to travel across the country.

North Carolina State has appeared in two of the past three Gator Bowls, so it’s a good bet the Wolfpack aren’t going there again.

That makes N.C. State a more likely candidate for a trip to San Diego, though Clemson isn’t out of the question.

If it is either Wake Forest or Pitt, then it could set the stage to fit the Holiday Bowl’s reputation for shootouts. Both teams rank among the top four scoring offenses in the nation with nearly 43 points a game.

On the Pac-12 side, Arizona State (8-4) and UCLA (8-4) are the two teams most mentioned in connection with the Holiday Bowl.

No. 17 Utah (10-3), which defeated No. 10 Oregon (10-3) in Friday night’s Pac-12 title game, is headed to the Rose Bowl for the first time. The Ducks are expected to go to the Alamo Bowl.

That leaves the Las Vegas Bowl and Holiday Bowl to decide between ASU and UCLA.

The Bruins are believed to favor coming south.

43rd annual SDCCU Holiday Bowl

When/where: Tuesday, Dec. 28, 5 p.m. (Fox), Petco Park

Expected payout: $3.2 million per team

Conferences: ACC vs. Pac-12

Projected matchup: North Carolina State vs. UCLA

Pecking order: After the New Year’s Six slots are filled, the Holiday Bowl gets one of three picks (with the Gator and Cheez-It bowls) among ACC teams and among Pac-12 teams (after the Alamo and Las Vegas bowls).

While No. 6 Notre Dame (11-1) competes as an independent, the Fighting Irish are associated with the ACC for bowl purposes. Notre Dame is positioned this season for an NY6 invitation.