If Arizona wins the Big 12 Conference in its inaugural season it will earn an automatic bid to the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. An at-large bid to the playoffs is also possible.
But like most FBS schools, the most likely postseason destiny is a standard bowl game. And despite having changed conferences, the UA will still be treated like a Pac-12 team for another two years when it comes to selecting matchups for those games.
The Pac-12 on Friday announced it had “retained all of its existing bowl opportunities for 2024 and 2025, per a news release. But since the league technically only has two schools—Oregon State and Washington State—the rest of its bowl slots would be filled by teams that left the Pac-12 after last season.
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark confirmed to Action Network during Big 12 Media Days in Las Vegas this week that his league’s former Pac-12 teams—Arizona, ASU, Colorado and Utah—would still play in Pac-12 bowls in 2024-25 if they don’t make the CFP. Same goes for Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington from the Big Ten and Cal and Stanford from the ACC.
The Alamo Bowl announced Friday the 24 teams in contention for its game, which Arizona won last season over Oklahoma. If the Wildcats were selected for that game against this season, or in 2025, it would face a member of its same league.
We are excited to announce the 24 teams that will be eligible to play in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Saturday, December 28 at 6:30pm CT on ABC! Looking forward to another great bowl season.#ValeroAlamoBowl pic.twitter.com/QWKZstJxXf
— Valero Alamo Bowl (@valeroalamobowl) July 12, 2024
The Pac-12 bowls the UA could be chosen for, if it doesn’t make the playoff, include:
- LA Bowl (Dec. 18 vs. Mountain West)
- Las Vegas Bowl (Dec. 27 vs. SEC)
- Alamo Bowl (Dec. 28 vs. Big 12)
- Independence Bowl (Dec. 28 vs. Army)
- Sun Bowl (Dec. 31 vs. ACC or Notre Dame)
- Holiday Bowl (date TBD vs. ACC)
It won’t be until 2026 when Arizona is fully part of the Big 12’s bowl affiliation, at which time it would become eligible for the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix, the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando, the Texas Bowl in Houston and the First Responder Bowl in Dallas, as well as the Alamo Bowl.
Not all those affiliations may still exist in 2026, though, and new ones could come up. Yormark indicated at Big 12 Media Days that he would love to have his conference be part of the Las Vegas Bowl, particularly since he was speaking from inside the stadium that hosts that game.
