For 20 years, the Holiday Bowl and the Western Athletic Conference have enjoyed a love affair of sorts. After all, a WAC team has played in the game famous for offensive fireworks and dramatic finishes every year but two since the Holiday's 1978 inception.
But as kickoff of the 1998 college football season nears, the long-standing relationship may be ending.The birth of the Bowl Championship Series and the impending demise of the 16-team WAC spurred the Holiday Bowl's recent decision to sever its ties with the WAC, Pac-10, Big 12 and Cotton Bowl and begin negotiations on a new arrangement for 1998 and beyond.
As it stands now, the WAC champion has no guaranteed bowl berth at the end of the year.
There's still time for that to change, however. Fortunately for the WAC, which is desperately scrambling for bowl berths, it has Dick Circuit on its side.
Circuit is a BYU alum, a WAC supporter, a past Holiday Bowl president and current chairman of the Holiday Bowl's national strategy committee. The six-person group makes decisions regarding sponsorships, television contracts and conference affiliations. The committee got together Tuesday afternoon and had what Circuit described as a "spirited meeting" to discuss the setup for the this year's game, slated for Dec. 30 in San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium.
"I'm 1,000 percent in favor of the WAC continuing its involvement," he said. "The WAC has been wonderful participants in the history of the Holiday Bowl and a contributor to the success of this bowl."
There is, of course, a groundswell of support for the hometown school, San Diego State, which has several alums serving on the bowl's board of directors.
But the Holiday Bowl is operating with a clean slate now and is reportedly eyeing a deal that would lock in the Pac-10's No. 2 team on a long-term basis. Pac-10 officials say they're interested in that type of scenario.
"We have great fans of the Pac-10, WAC and Big 12 in this town. The bottom line is we want to do what's best for the bowl," Circuit said. "People (on the committee) have differing views and opinions. Nothing definitive has been decided. In all likelihood, we will continue to have the game with all the participants we had before. We would like everything in place before the season begins. We will make an announcement, the sooner the better."
He added the bowl could elect to invite a pair of at-large teams. That could open the door for a school like Notre Dame, which is not guaranteed a place in the BCS like it was in the Bowl Alliance.
The Holiday Bowl exercised its Bowl Alliance escape clause by filing a letter of termination July 14 and ending its partnership with the WAC, Pac-10, Big 12 and the Cotton Bowl. The BCS, which supplanted the Bowl Alliance, in-cludes the Rose Bowl and seeks to match the two top-ranked teams in a national championship game. The Holiday and Cotton bowls will select their matchups after the BCS announces its lineup.
The past three years, the Holiday and Cotton had an agreement that put either the WAC champion or Pac-10's No. 2 against the Big 12's No. 2 in the Cotton. The Holiday invited the team not chosen by the Cotton to face the Big 12's No. 3.
The Holiday Bowl's decision has left the blindsided Cotton Bowl in a lurch. "We're exploring our options," said Charlie Fiss, spokesman for the Dallas-based game. "We have our title sponsor and the TV network and other entities to work through. We're trying to sift through it."
If the Holiday Bowl hadn't filed the termination, the existing contract would have been in effect for three more years. The Holiday would much prefer pursuing an affiliation with the breakaway WAC faction, including BYU, Utah and San Diego State, rather than being stuck in a deal with the soon-to-be gutted WAC.
The unusual circumstances leave the current WAC in an awkward position, but some conference officials are confident the league will remain in the Holiday mix in 1998.
"On the one hand, everybody in the WAC needs to be concerned," said Utah athletic director Chris Hill. "On the other, we've been good for the Holiday Bowl and they've been good for us. It's made sense for 20 years."
But as far as a contract with the new conference goes, the Holiday is making no promises.
For Holiday Bowl officials, confusion reigns about the status of the league. "We don't know what the WAC is or isn't," Circuit said. "Every day we keep hearing different things. We don't know about the outcome of all the legal questions. We don't know who's in or out. Given the fact the WAC is splitting up, there are things that are out of our control.
"The new league doesn't have a name, a leader or a commissioner. It's a headless octopus. We can't wait for them to make their decisions."
The only guaranteed bowl slots for the WAC in 1998 are the Las Vegas Bowl vs. an at-large team on Dec. 19 and a berth in the Jeep Aloha Christmas Football Classics, a doubleheader to be played in Hawaii, against the No. 5 Pac-10 team.
There are a smattering of at-large possibilities for WAC teams, but most of those contests are played east of the Mississippi, meaning the WAC is not likely to be a viable candidate. Boise's Humanitarian Bowl had an at-large slot until it inked a recent deal with Conference USA, guaranteeing a selected team from that league will face the Big West champ.