While conferences are jockeying for position to become power players as college football undergoes a massive facelift, so too are the bowl games.
As talk of a playoff, plus-one, or the status quo has ramped up, many of the smaller bowls have taken a backseat to those already involved in the BCS system and they're not exactly content with their lot.
The Holiday Bowl is one of those bowls hoping to become attractive enough to lure the bigger conferences to San Diego when the dust settles.
"We're going to be aggressive," Holiday Bowl Executive Director Bruce Binkowski told the San Diego Union-Tribune last week. "I don't know what that means, but we're going to be aggressive."
The Holiday Bowl used to be the destination for the second or third pick from the Pac-10 Conference and the third or fourth pick from the Big 12. But since 2010, it's had the third or fourth pick from the Pac-12 and the fifth or sixth pick from the Big 12. The bowl is hoping to change that when the bowls are restructured in 2014.
However, doing so won't be easy, according to the Union-Tribune. In order to attract some of the better teams from the better conferences, the Holiday Bowl will have to increase ticket prices from $60 to $100, something the game's board of directors didn't do in 2009, which forced them to lose the upper echelon of teams from the Big 12 and Pac-12.
"It was the right thing to do at the time," Binkowski told the Union-Tribune. "We also think we owe it to our ticket holders, our sponsors and everybody to see if we can move back up in the selection order. So we're going to look at every possible option that is available to us. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but we're not just going to sit still and watch. We're going to see what we can do to move back up."
While the Holiday Bowl might want to be proactive as college football changes, it will take a backseat to the more attractive bowls, especially those already involved in the BCS system. Once the conference commissioners and Notre Dame decide the fate of those bowls and the type of system they'll use to determine a national champion, the other bowls will have a chance to save themselves and remain relevant in the changing landscape.
It's hard to imagine a place like San Diego — a place that has hosted a bowl game for 35 years — wouldn't be among those along for the ride.
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