Holiday Bowl: Washington State to take on Syracuse on Dec. 27 in San Diego

PULLMAN – Washington State will be making a second trip to Southern California this season.

WSU will play Syracuse in the Holiday Bowl, set for 5 p.m. on Dec. 27 at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, the site of the Cougars’ win over San Diego State on Oct. 26, the bowl announced Sunday afternoon. For the Cougs, it’s the eighth trip to a bowl game in the last nine full seasons. The game will be broadcast on Fox.

“Washington State is excited to accept an invitation to the 2024 DirecTV Holiday Bowl,” WSU athletic director Anne McCoy said via release. “To participate in one of the premier bowl games, in a region where many of our fans can attend, will provide a memorable experience for our players, coaches and alumni.”

“Just really excited to play in one of the Pac-12’s most prestigious bowl games,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said in a Zoom news conference Sunday. “Obviously, throughout the history of Washington State, these aren’t easy to get to. So our team has earned it. We’re excited about playing a ranked football team in Syracuse, who has one of the best passers in all the country.”

This will mark the second meeting between the Cougars and Orange, who last clashed in 1979, when Syracuse earned a 52-25 win in Buffalo, New York.

WSU (8-4) will be making its fifth appearance in the Holiday Bowl in program history. The Cougars have gone 1-4 in those games, its only win coming in a 2003 victory over Texas. WSU also went in 1981, then in back-to-back seasons in 2016 and 2017.

The Pac-12 may be down to two teams this season – WSU and Oregon State – but the conference maintained its bowl tie-ins even with its former teams in new conferences. That’s why the Cougars remained eligible for a legacy Pac-12 bowl.

“We are honored to have earned the right to play in the 2024 Holiday Bowl against one of the best teams in the country,” Dickert said via release. “To have one more opportunity to send our senior class out the right way means a lot to this team. We can’t wait to see Cougar nation in San Diego cheering on the Cougs.”

This will be the second trip to San Diego this season for the Cougars, who rallied for a 29-26 win over San Diego State on Oct. 26. WSU ended the regular season on a three-game slide, dropping games to New Mexico, Oregon State and Wyoming, going from a possible CFP contender – WSU rose as high as No. 18 in those rankings – to unranked and playing in the Pac-12’s second-best bowl game.

In the Cougs’ win over the Aztecs, though, the Snapdragon Stadium field often kicked up dirt and sand, an issue a few of SDSU’s opponents noticed this season.

That issue will be solved come time for the Holiday Bowl, Dickert said. He indicated he heard from bowl officials that the field has been resodded – “and it should be in pristine condition going into this game,” Dickert said.

The Cougs will be matched up against a 9-3 Syracuse team, which was ranked No. 21 in the final CFP rankings. Under first-year head coach Fran Brown, the Orange wrapped up the regular season with a 42-38 home win over Miami, which narrowly missed the 12-team College Football Playoff field. Quarterback Kyle McCord, a transfer from Ohio State, has racked up 4,326 passing yards (the most nationally) and 29 touchdown passes this season.

Syracuse running back LeQuint Allen has also figured prominently into his team’s offense, totaling 901 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns on 211 carries, an average rush of 4.3 yards.

“That’s an amazing challenge in and of its own,” Dickert said of Syracuse’s passing attack, which leads the country with 363 yards per game. “The McCord kid has been fantastic. Transfer from Ohio State. Has really resurrected their program in the first year of Coach Brown. Like myself, he’s a defensive coach. He’s a 4-2-5 guy. They’ve done a bunch of different things schematically throughout his background, and they’re aggressive.”

WSU, which fired defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding and lost offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle to the same job at Oklahoma last week, will be trying something new at the coordinator spots for the bowl game. Quarterbacks coach John Kuceyeski will call plays on offense and Dickert will do the same on defense. Kuceyeski has established a real rapport with QB John Mateer, Dickert said, and Dickert is a defensive-minded coach himself.

Will Mateer be suited up for the Holiday Bowl? WSU has prepared an NIL “package” to try and keep Mateer in Pullman, Dickert said earlier this weekend, and out of the transfer portal, which opens on Monday.

“To hop back into that with a million things going on, we’re gonna find a way to make sure we’re ready to execute that plan,” Dickert said. “At practice, we did a bunch of moving stuff things yesterday, and I made a couple mistakes calling plays – the words and the verbiage have changed. I’m saying old calls, and coaches are looking at me like, ‘What are you doing?’ So I gotta get some verbiage down a little bit, but other than that, gonna cut these guys loose.”

WSU will be without the services of its running back, true freshman Wayshawn Parker, who announced on Monday he’s entering the transfer portal. The Cougars have also lost starting cornerback Ethan O’Connor and two reserves, defensive back Warren Smith and wide receiver Brandon Hills, to the portal in recent days.

Asked about any more potential opt-outs, Dickert didn’t offer much insight other than saying he expects to field “all the guys that are there, willing and able to be out there.”

Regardless, WSU is planning to get some younger players some reps in the Holiday Bowl, guys who didn’t play this season because they redshirted. That includes cornerback Kamani Jackson, linebacker Frank Cusano, offensive lineman Landon Roaten, running back Josh Joyner and defensive back Jaylon Edmond.

“Frank Cusano is another guy that really comes to mind that just has a bright future,” Dickert said, “and to give him some game experience is gonna be really big to set up what he can be early in the season next year. So those are guys right now that really come to mind that I think will be really integrated into our game plan.”