The Fiesta Bowl Game

The underdog of the big bowl circuit, the Fiesta Bowl was fueled by frustrations at being unable to secure bowl births for its division champions.

The Western Athletic Conference launched the Fiesta Bowl in 1971 and quickly began building a field of nationally prominent competitors, drawing Big Eight co-champ Nebraska to play undefeated Arizona State in 1975 in its first meeting of top-five teams.

By the eighties the bowl was continuing to attract high quality matchups and it shifted to New Year’s Day and was played along side the other major bowls.

These days, when you team secures a Fiesta Bowl birth, you’d do well to get on Stub Hub and Travelocity fast, because Glendale, Arizona is quite a nice place to spend your New Years, especially if you hail from a snowbird state, so tickets go quickly, and spike in airfare is almost immediate when the teams are announced.