Count No. 17 Arizona and SMU among the teams viewing bowl season as a gift, with relatively few known opt-outs on either side.
These teams playing at full tilt could create a very interesting strength-on-strength matchup when the Wildcats and Mustangs meet in the Holiday Bowl on Friday in San Diego.
SMU (8-4) owns the No. 11 passing offense in FBS at 283.5 yards per game, propelled by Kevin Jennings’ 3,363 yards and 26 touchdowns. Arizona (9-3) can counter with the nation’s fourth-ranked pass defense, which allowed a mere 155.9 yards per game and nine total passing TDs.
A multi-year starter, Jennings recently announced he was returning to SMU in 2026 for his fifth and final year of eligibility. He was the Mustangs’ quarterback when they reached the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game and earned an at-large College Football Playoff berth last year.
Jennings exemplifies the state of affairs at SMU with the transfer portal about to open.
“We’ve not had an issue with opt-outs yet,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said. “… If players decide to transfer now, even though the portal is not open, they probably won’t be with us for the game. But in terms of opt-outs, I don’t expect that.”
Arizona coach Brent Brennan played it coy, saying Lashlee and SMU would find out Friday night which Wildcats wouldn’t play in the game.
As it stands, the only known opt-outs are Arizona offensive lineman Michael Wooten and SMU edge rusher DJ Warner, who plan to enter the portal.
Arizona comes in as the hotter team, having finished the regular season on a five-game winning streak, including road triumphs over ranked opponents Cincinnati and Arizona State. One more victory would give the Wildcats their fifth 10-win season in program history — and their second in three years.
“Since we got bowl-eligible we’ve been talking about this extra life that this team gets by getting to go to a bowl game,” Brennan said. “And that means this extra time this special group of people gets to be together. We always talk about at the beginning of the year, like in January, that every football team has a lifespan. It’s either 11 months or 10 months or nine months, but the longer the better, right? And so I think they’ve done a great job of enjoying those moments.”
The Wildcats have an experienced quarterback of their own, with Noah Fifita amassing 2,963 passing yards, 26 touchdowns and only five interceptions. He also has run for three touchdowns.
Fifita was an All-Big 12 first-team selection, along with defensive backs Dalton Johnson and Treydan Stukes (four interceptions apiece), who backstop Arizona’s stingy pass defense.
SMU safety Ahmaad Moses led his team with five interceptions (one returned for a TD) and 91 tackles. He and offensive lineman Logan Parr were All-ACC first-team honorees.
The Mustangs have not won a bowl game since the 2012 Hawaii Bowl, losing in their last five appearances. It’s the program’s second appearance in the Holiday Bowl, with the other a loss to BYU in 1980.
Arizona is making its third trip to the Holiday Bowl, having won in 1998 against Nebraska before losing to the Cornhuskers in 2009.
–Field Level Media
