Holiday Bowl canceled for 2020

One of the jewels of the college football bowl season won’t take place in 2020, as today Holiday Bowl officials announced that they will suspend the December tradition in 2020.

With the realignment of conference tie-ins for 2020, the game was scheduled to welcome the ACC for the first time against their traditional Pac-12 partner. The game was also without a stadium as of this announcement, as the San Diego County Credit Union Stadium (formerly Qualcomm Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium) is being condemned and has forced the San Diego State Aztecs to play their 2020 home games in Carson, California 117 miles away.

It makes sense for a game without a venue to take a one-year pause in the middle of a pandemic, but it will break a streak of the game being held annually since 1978. Undefeated BYU’s win in 1984 over Michigan awarded the Cougars the national championship, and there’s a history of exciting down-to-the-wire finishes in Mission Valley.

The Holiday Bowl is the fourth bowl game to be canceled in 2020, joining the Hawai’i Bowl, Bahamas Bowl, and Redbox Bowl.