Holiday Bowl First Look: USC vs. Wisconsin

The 2015 Holiday Bowl will feature a matchup between the USC Trojans and Wisconsin Badgers.

Holiday Bowl Broadcast Info

Date: Wednesday, December 30
Time: 10:30 pm ET
Network: ESPN
Venue: Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, CA

A most bizarre year at USC ends with a loss in Santa Clara

The Trojans made it to the Pac-12 Championship Game, which was the expectation in the preseason. Wholly unexpected, though, was the team’s head coach at the end of the year, Clay Helton. USC lost Steve Sarkisian during the year, as well as five games, including Saturday to Stanford. In that regard, it was a disappointment for a team that began the campaign ranked in the top 10 in most polls. However, the program believes it has finally achieved some semblance of stability with Helton. And this month of practices will be particularly important for a team and a staff that employed such a large number of underclassmen throughout the year.

Wisconsin Needs To Beat Someone Who Doesn’t Stink

The Badgers had the season that was almost special. The three losses are about as acceptable as any in the country, dropping the opener to Alabama and getting picked off by Iowa and Northwestern, but being two plays away from being 11-1 and in the Big Ten title game is still 9-3. But here’s the problem – there’s no decent win. How many wins over teams with six or more wins did Bucky generate? Zip. Beating Nebraska and Minnesota was nice, but this is when Bucky has to validate the season. It might not have been a Big Ten championship campaign, but 10-3 is a nice consolation prize – especially if there’s an actual win of note to finish it all up.