The Big Ten Conference will be adding two more bowl games in California beginning with the 2014 season. A Big Ten team will play a team out of the Pac-12 Conference in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco.
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney says the new bowl lineup for the league is designed to provide more variety for the teams as well as the bowl games.
“We’ve had almost 20 years of bowl tie-ins, we think we know the positives and there are many, to be able to develop relationships with another conference in a key community,” Delaney says. “But it’s also counterproductive to send teams to the same region or same bowls in consecutive or four times out of five years. So in each of these areas we are going to be focused on moving teams. And as I said, who wouldn’t want to be in San Francisco ?, who wouldn’t want to be in San Diego? There are fabulous trips to great venues.”
Delaney says they were looking to add some games against Pac-12 foes. He says the games will provide the teams great opportunities in great parts of the country to showcase the teams.
The last Big Ten team to play in the Holiday Bowl was Michigan in 1994. Iowa has appeared in the Holiday Bowl on three occasions.