2016 Poinsettia Bowl, BYU vs. Wyoming: Date, time, location and everything to know

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This year’s Poinsettia Bowl is set to be played in San Diego on Dec. 21, making it the only major football game on the Wednesday before Christmas.

The Poinsettia’s quietly been around for a while, having started up as a bowl game in 2005. It’s featured a few really competitive games. The best might have been 2008’s, when an Andy Dalton-led TCU beat Boise State 17-16 in a battle of two great teams. Last year’s game was the most lopsided in Poinsettia Bowl history, with San Diego State putting a 48-point hurting on Northern Illinois.

The game is sponsored by the San Diego County Credit Union, as it’s been since its inception. That’s kind of interesting, given that bowl affiliations in this era change practically as often as organizers get dressed. This game’s stayed remarkably the same, even residing in the same stadium for all its time as an NCAA event.

Interested in how this has worked and will work this year? Here’s everything to know about the Poinsettia Bowl, which returns this year for a 12th game.

Date and time: Dec. 21, 9 p.m. ET

TV channel: ESPN

Location: San Diego, Calif.

Stadium: Qualcomm Stadium

Last year’s score: Boise State 55, Northern Illinois 7

Last year’s attendance: 21,501

Teams with the most all-time appearances: Navy has appeared four times.

Teams with the most all-time wins: TCU has won three times.

BYU (8-4, independent)

The Cougars had an interesting first year under head coach Kalani Sitake. They played a ton of close games, and they lost three of them in a row between Weeks 2 and 4. The losing streak that brought BYU from 1-0 to 1-3 in the first month included three losses of a combined seven points. That was sort of cruel, but at least the Cougars got whisker-thin wins later on against Toledo and Mississippi State. (They also lost a tight one against Boise State, because that’s how this year went.)

BYU’s a hard team to get a read on. The Cougars were pretty close to going 11-1, but they were also pretty close to going 6-6. So at the end of the day, an 8-4 record sounds just about right, and the Cougars finished somewhere close to where they should’ve. Now they’re in the Poinsettia Bowl for a second time, having last appeared there in 2012, when they beat San Diego State, 23-6.

The BYU offense thrives on the ground, with running back Jamal Williams leading the way. Quarterback Taysom Hill has had an uneven year. Defensive back Kai Nacua had five interceptions during the regular season, giving the Cougars a top ballhawk.

Wyoming (8-5, Mountain West)

The Cowboys have quietly become one of college football’s best stories. They went 6-18 the last two years and entered 2016 without a bowl bid since 2011, and with just three since 1993. Then they turned it on and became one of the best, most fun teams in the Group of 5 conferences. Craig Bohl’s rebuild accelerated really, really quickly. It fell short of producing a Mountain West title this year, but just barely.

Wyoming had some awesome moments along the way. There was a thrilling home win against then-unbeaten Boise State, then another against San Diego State, giving them victories against the two other best teams in the Mountain West. That’s not so typical in Laramie.

Wyoming’s kind of a weird team, from a purely statistical perspective. The offense is great, and the defense is genuinely terrible. So the Pokes have to win shootouts, and they’ve done exactly that. (They’ve even lost them, like when UNLV won an outrageous 69-66 decision against them in November.) The Pokes are fun, and they’re certainly oddballs, and that makes them a perfect bowl team. We’ll enjoy getting the chance to watch them play again.