Inside The Huskies

Huskies Arrive in El Paso for Sun Bowl Festivities

The game with Louisville is scheduled for Tuesday in the Texas town.

Dan Raley

Jedd Fisch dons the local apparel after he and the Huskies arrived in El Paso, Texas, for the Sun Bowl.
Jedd Fisch dons the local apparel after he and the Huskies arrived in El Paso, Texas, for the Sun Bowl. / UW

For the third time in three seasons, the University of Washington football team touched down in Texas for a postseason game, arriving on Thursday in El Paso for the 91st Sun Bowl aboard a chartered jetliner.

A grinning coach Jedd Fisch, donning a purple and gold sombrero, and his players were greeted by bowl game representatives, treated to dancers in brightly colored attire sharing some of the local ambiance of this border town and they posed for photos with the Tony the Tiger sponsor mascot.

On New Year's Eve, the Huskies (6-6) will meet the Louisville Cardinals (7-5) in a game that bills itself as one of the oldest bowls in college football. The Sun Bowl was created in 1935, same as the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl, with only the Rose Bowl, founded in 1902, played earlier.

Broadcast each year by CBS TV, the game kicks off at 11 a.m. PST next Tuesday in Sun Bowl Stadium.

In late morning, the Huskies boarded an airplane at Boeing Field outfitted with business class quad configurations, providing players with walled-off seating spaces.

The Huskies were dressed in hooded white sweat suits customized for this Sun Bowl outing and carried gift bags.

"I've never been to the Sun Bowl," Fisch said after his team received the postseason bid earlier in the month. "This is a new bowl game on my checklist We're going to make it a fantastic experience for our team."

The UW, according to its online roster, has just 92 players listed following a host of transfer portal departures. At least seven Huskies are injured and ruled out, leaving the UW with 85 available players, just 67 on scholarship.

Senior offensive guard Gaard Memmelaar and junior punter Jack McCallister entered the transfer portal, and are committed to UCF and Nebraska, respectively, but they opted to play in the Husky bowl game.

Louisville arrived an hour before the Huskies while coming from Kentucky, which is almost the same amount of distance as the Seattle travelers endured.

Both teams were ushered off to a TopGolf outing that mixes golf swings with music and food, and then to a gift suite function at the Sun Bowl Stadium.

On Friday, both teams will visit Fort Bliss Army Base. Leading up to the game, they will eat at the Cattleman's Steakhouse, share in a barbecue and talent show at the Sunland Park Racetrack, and visit El Paso Children's Hospital.

Each team was scheduled to hold a pair of closed practices while in this city situated at a meeting of the Texas, New Mexico and Mexico borders.

 For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

 

Published
Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

Home/Football