With room for more than 80 teams and only 133 playing at the FBS level, mathematically it’s not that hard to make a bowl game. In fact, all but eight programs have gone bowling at least once in the previous five seasons.
Arizona is one of those eight. When it plays Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28 it will be its first bowl appearance since the 2017 Foster Farms Bowl. Only UNLV, with its previous appearance coming in 2013, is ending a larger bowl drought this month.
Getting to play in arguably the biggest non-New Year’s Six game on the schedule, both in terms of bowl payout and ranking of teams—No.