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Reports are Arizona was offered a bid to the Holiday Bowl before the team left Los Angeles on Saturday night, and the school has of course accepted.
So, the first Pac-10 domino has fallen, meaning Stanford will almost certainly be the Sun Bowl selection (#3 Pac-10)--leaving the Emerald and Las Vegas Bowls to set their matchups at the 4/5 spots, with Oregon State, USC and Cal all in the mix.
Only Oregon State is ranked in the Coaches'/AP polls, with the Beavers 20th and 16th, respectively. BYU is up a spot in the AP to 15th and down a spot in the Coaches, to 14th.
If the Las Vegas Bowl is able to pick Oregon State, and then opts for BYU, that bowl would be one of the few lower-tier bowls featuring a matchup of Top 20 teams. More notably, the Las Vegas Bowl could end up with a higher-ranked Pac-10 team than both Holiday and Sun Bowls, which would be quite the coup.
Not knowing the particular logistics of the Emerald Bowl/Las Vegas Bowl bargaining and selection negotiations between the #4 and #5 picks, it will be interesting to see how the two bowls state their respective priorities. To me, the biggest question is, who wants USC more: the Emerald Bowl or Las Vegas Bowl? While a matchup of two Top 20 teams would be intriguing, does Las Vegas instead want to tap into the nearby L.A. fan base?
Another question: Is it possible the Emerald could opt for the regional ticket sales potential of Cal, and leave USC to the Poinsettia Bowl?
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By the way, there are rumblings that Arizona AD Jim Livengood (a BYU graduate) will be taking the same post at UNLV, and that Arizona Defensive Coordinator Mark Stoops (brother of Wildcats' head man Mike Stoops) could be following Livengood to Las Vegas as the Rebels' replacement for Mike Sanford. Stoops is also a candidate for the head coaching job at Youngstown State.
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