Holiday Bowl to Depart Petco Park After 2 Seasons; Heads to Snapdragon

Following two seasons at Petco Park, the Holiday Bowl college football game will move to Snapdragon Stadium this December, it was announced Tuesday.

The San Diego Padres and Sports San Diego made a joint announcement about the move of the bowl game, which was played from 1978 to 2019 at San Diego Stadium/Jack Murphy Stadium/Qualcomm Stadium/SDCCU Stadium before moving to Petco for the 2022 and 2023 games. The Holiday Bowl was not played in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was our honor to host the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park,” Padres CEO Erik Greupner said in a statement. “Keeping the game in San Diego at a time when there weren’t any other viable options was vitally important to the Holiday Bowl, our community and local economy.

“The Holiday Bowl is a great event and wonderful San Diego tradition,” he said. “We will continue our promise to be more than a ballpark by hosting world-class concerts and events at Petco Park in the future. We wish the Holiday Bowl many years of successful and exciting games at their new venue.”

The two games at the home of the Padres have featured a shootout and a narrow, come-back victory.

Redshirt sophomore quarterback Miller Moss threw six touchdown passes in his first college start, leading USC to a 42-28 victory over Louisville in the 44th annual Holiday Bowl, played Dec. 27, 2023.

Moss set Holiday Bowl and USC bowl game records for touchdown passes and matched the Pac-12 Conference bowl record.

In 2022, Bo Nix threw a 6-yard touchdown pass to Chase Cota with 19 seconds left and Camden Lewis’ extra point kick deflected off the left crossbar and went through the goal posts to complete Oregon’s comeback from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit in a 28-27 victory over North Carolina in the 43rd Holiday Bowl.

Nix completed five of six passes for 56 yards on the Ducks’ 79-yard, eight-play game-winning drive that also included a pass interference penalty. The touchdown pass came on a fourth-and-2 play.

“The DIRECTV Holiday Bowl had a great run at Petco Park, and we are so appreciative to the San Diego Padres for being tremendous hosts,” said Sports San Diego CEO Mark Neville. “The Holiday Bowl is an important event for San Diego, and the Padres were there for us when SDCCU Stadium was razed. Petco Park is an incredible venue, one for which our community is lucky to have.”

The Holiday Bowl weekend features a “battle of the bands” with the participating university marching bands, a parade with floats and a “Bowl Bash,” with music, games and other live events.

–City News Service