Bowls: There are a lot of them. As a public service, the Doc is here to rank each game according to five crucial criteria, with help from the patron saint of the game in question. Today: The Poinsettia Bowl! Teams. Navy Midshipmen (9-3) vs. San Diego State Aztecs (8-4).
Particulars. Dec. 23 (Today), 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: San Diego State (–3½)
Patron Saint: Fifteenth-century Spanish lay brother Saint Didacius of Alcalá, also known as Saint Diego, who (as legend has it) grew up in the care of a hermit, oversaw the founding of the Convent of San Buenaventura, miraculously cured the sick through pious intercession at Alatraz and, following his death from an abscess, did not undergo rigor mortis, instead emitting a pleasant odor from the infection. Contact with Diego's corpse later healed Henry IV of Castile's broken arm and saved Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias, son of King Philip II of Spain, from a brush with death after a fall down some stairs.
• Locale. San Diego, California's second-largest city, where blue skies keep watch on 70 miles of beach and a gentle Mediterranean climate begs for a day of everything and nothing. And, for this week only, where torrential rain submerges local stadia in several feet of disgusting water from a nearby river. Poinsettia Bowl executive director Bruce Binkowski assured the San Diego Union-Tribune this morning that the game will go on as planned on a "beautiful" field that is only slightly "damp and slushy" after Qualcomm Stadium was flooded on Wednesday morning: "All the water is off. They've actually started to paint the sponsor logo at midfield," Binkowski said. "That tells you how things are progressing. They're painting the field markings now. All the water is out. It's a miracle."
• Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl
• Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl
• Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl
• Dec. 22: Maaco Bowl Las Vegas
• Tradition. In its sixth season as America's only major credit union-sponsored bowl game, the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl boasts a rich tradition of sponsor and site stability. Though young, the game's tie-in with the up-and-coming Mountain West has paid off: Before this year, three of the last four games featured at least one top-25 outfit that finished the season with 10 wins, including a heavy-hitting collision between No. 11 TCU (10-2) and No. 9 Boise State (12-0) in 2008, a prelude to the Horned Frogs' and Broncos' run to the Fiesta Bowl a year later and into the middle of this season's national championship debate.
• Swag. Players will receive a Fossil watch, hooded sweatshirt, cap and, most enticingly, a Best Buy gift card for an undisclosed amount. My choice: A Samsung 40" class 3D-ready HDTV, Blu-ray Player, 3D Starter Kit and Adapter, starting at $1,299.96. But you, some nice headphones would be cool, too.
• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. As usual, the teams' bowl perks included a trip by one team to the San Diego Zoo and by the other to SeaWorld, respectively, which typically results in the standard "Walk on the Wild Side" hilarity:
This year, though, it was kind of a tough crowd: To San Diego State players, the local zoo must be old hat, and the Midshipmen probably encounter cooler, more dangerous predators than Shamu on a daily basis. (I understand they did enjoy interacting with the gentle and mysterious beluga, though.)
• This year's match-up. Stylistically, they're opposites – Navy gets it done by ground, San Diego State by air – but both teams got here primarily by outscoring opponents, and they were both thisclose to an even bigger breakthrough: The seven losses between them came by a combined 30 points, none by more than five. In the Aztecs' case, three of their four defeats came in close calls at the hands of teams that finished with 10 wins – Missouri (a 27-24 winner in September, on a late comeback), TCU (40-35, the Horned Frogs' narrowest margin of the season) and Utah (38-34).
It doesn't hurt the potential entertainment value that neither defense looks particularly adept at slowing down the opposing offense's bread and butter: Navy comes in 86th nationally in pass efficiency defense, and San Diego State was ripped for 489 yards (312 rushing) in October by the only triple-option attack it faced, Air Force.
• Star power. The Aztecs wrested the Mountain West passing crown from BYU for the first time in five years, thanks to the efforts of quarterback Ryan Lindley and senior receivers Vincent Brown and DeMarco Sampson, who combined for more than 2,300 yards and 17 touchdowns on 126 catches. And the real star of the offense may have been freshman running back Ronnie Hillman, who broke out with a 228-yard, two-touchdown game in the near-upset at Missouri and finished as the leading rusher both among Mountain West backs and all freshman backs nationally.
Final rating: out of five.
Nine-win Navy running the triple option against one of the most explosive offenses in the nation on a field that was mostly underwater 24 hours earlier? It certainly blows away holiday reruns.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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