Washington State likely headed to Holiday Bowl

PULLMAN – Washington State will know its bowl destination by early Sunday afternoon, and all signs right now point to the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 27 in San Diego.

That is thanks in large part to No. 4 Washington’s win over No. 9 Colorado in Friday night’s Pac-12 Championship Game.

The Huskies will almost certainly be selected to play in the College Football Playoff, whose attendees will be announced at 9 a.m. Around noon the New Year’s Six bowls, including the Rose Bowl, will make the invitations. By 2 p.m. the other bowls will have likely made their selections public.

The Rose Bowl may invite No. 10 USC if CU’s loss causes it to fall below the Trojans in the rankings. In either case, whichever program is not invited is almost certainly headed to the Alamo Bowl.

While the Alamo Bowl could drop down and selected WSU, it will likely take the Buffaloes, who are expected to travel well to their first bowl game since 2007.

That leaves the Holiday Bowl, who could also select Stanford but are widely expected to invite the Cougars. CBS Sports, ESPN and SB Nation all project the Cougars to play in the Holiday Bowl, which would pit them against a Big Ten opponent such as Minnesota or Iowa.

If the Holiday Bowl did select Stanford over WSU, which beat the Cardinal 42-16 in Palo Alto earlier this season, the Cougars would play in the Foster Farms Bowl in Santa Clara on Dec. 28.