Usually, the one bowl game on Christmas Eve is the Hawaii Bowl, which Hawaii often plays in. This year, the Hawaii Bowl is canceled and its lone-game on Christmas Even position has been filled by the New Mexico Bowl. Which because of the virus is being played in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. And Hawaii is playing in this bowl. Whew!

About the game: Once again, an AAC team is a heavy favorite in its bowl game, and once again I can see why: Houston seems to have too many horses for Hawaii. Both teams have similar records but Houston's schedule has been a lot tougher. Houston has also overcome more. They have had one of the more bizarre schedules in this virus year. Their first three games were all postponed, so they didn't play until October 8th. They then played six straight weeks. Then followed three more straight weeks with postponements, including twice vs SMU. Then after a month off, they finally finished by playing Memphis, losing a tough close game.

I feel for Houston, so let's hope they win eh?

I think Hawaii surprises. They have been tested and were very competitive against Nevada, SJSU and Boise St.

UH is a long way from home and has an unfortunate habit of bombing in nationally televised games. But I'm hopeful they can give Houston a game. It helps that Coach Graham has done some recruiting in Texas and so this will be a homecoming for some of the UH players.

UH will be without some players due to academic performance, injuries, and COVID protocol. The number keep moving— I’ve hear as high as 15 but I have also heard only 4-5. Perhaps a UH fan can comment further. I guess we will find out soon.

so let me get this straight, todays game is U of H vs U of H... ok

(12-24-2020 03:10 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  UH is a long way from home and has an unfortunate habit of bombing in nationally televised games. But I'm hopeful they can give Houston a game. It helps that Coach Graham has done some recruiting in Texas and so this will be a homecoming for some of the UH players.

Yes, Houston is 220 miles from home. Hawaii is 3800 miles from home.

(12-24-2020 03:10 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  UH is a long way from home and has an unfortunate habit of bombing in nationally televised games. But I'm hopeful they can give Houston a game. It helps that Coach Graham has done some recruiting in Texas and so this will be a homecoming for some of the UH players.

Yes, Texas is one of the 87,483 places that Todd Graham has said is home and where he has family.

Can Houston get going in the second half?

Houston rallying ...

28-14 Hawaii

4q

Congratulations Hawaii, New Mexico Bowl champions.

Congratulations Hawaii.
MW 2
AAC 0

100th career win for Todd Graham.

MWC improves to 2-0 in bowl games, AAC drops to 1-3.

(12-24-2020 05:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(12-24-2020 03:10 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  UH is a long way from home and has an unfortunate habit of bombing in nationally televised games. But I'm hopeful they can give Houston a game. It helps that Coach Graham has done some recruiting in Texas and so this will be a homecoming for some of the UH players.

Yes, Texas is one of the 87,483 places that Todd Graham has said is home and where he has family.

LOL.

(12-24-2020 06:59 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Congratulations Hawaii.
MW 2
AAC 0

MW leads the AAC by 3-0 on the year, counting the regular season.

The AAC clearly wasn't as good this year as last year. I tried to tell some folks that and they said "how do we know that?"

Well, last year in the regular season the AAC went 18-1 against other G5 and independents other than Notre Dame. This year they went 7-5. In bowl games they were 2-1 against those teams, this year they are 1-3.

So a grand total of 20-2 last year versus 8-8 this year. And that's how it ends because their two remaining bowls are against P5 teams.

That's a pretty big difference. Huge.

The pandemic hasn’t helped matters either, if we’re being perfectly honest. We’ve had several games get canceled due to COVID-19.

(12-24-2020 07:06 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(12-24-2020 05:26 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(12-24-2020 03:10 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  UH is a long way from home and has an unfortunate habit of bombing in nationally televised games. But I'm hopeful they can give Houston a game. It helps that Coach Graham has done some recruiting in Texas and so this will be a homecoming for some of the UH players.

Yes, Texas is one of the 87,483 places that Todd Graham has said is home and where he has family.

LOL.

But, to be fair, Todd Graham did grow up in the east Dallas suburb of Mesquite.

Good win for Hawaii.

Read the wiki article on Todd Graham to try to remember where he had been. Done a lot of jumping. I did see him coach at Rice Stadium. His coaching tree was interesting:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Graham

"...Assistant coaches under Graham who became college head coaches:

Major Applewhite: Houston (2016–2018)
Chris Ball: Northern Arizona (2019–present)
David Beaty: Kansas (2015–2018)
Bill Blankenship: Tulsa (2011–2014)
Chip Lindsey: Troy (2019–present)
Gus Malzahn: Arkansas State (2012), Auburn (2013–2020)
Chad Morris: SMU (2015–2017), Arkansas (2018–2019)
Billy Napier: Louisiana (2018–present)
Jay Norvell: Nevada (2017–present)
Mike Norvell: Memphis (2016–2019), Florida State (2020–present)
Ryan Silverfield: Memphis (2019–present)
Jake Spavital: Texas State (2019–present)..."