California, Texas to play in Holiday Bowl

It seemed inevitable that if Texas and California kept showing up at the Holiday Bowl, they'd eventually play each other. The Longhorns and Golden Bears will play in the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 28, the first matchup between the schools since 1970. Texas will be playing in the Holiday Bowl for the fifth time while Cal is making its third visit. Both teams are 7-5. This matchup comes seven years after California expected to play in the Rose Bowl, only to be shocked to find out that they were leapfrogged in the final BCS standings by Texas, which ended up going to Pasadena and beating Michigan 38-37. After those pairings came out, then-Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers said Texas coach Mack Brown ''was a little classless'' in begging for poll votes that would help the Longhorns climb in the BCS standings. If getting knocked out of the Rose Bowl wasn't bad enough, the Golden Bears were humiliated 45-31 by Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl that year. In a statement released by the school Sunday night, Cal coach Jeff Tedford said 2004 ''is a long time ago. I don't remember much about it except for feeling like there was a great opportunity there. We all felt like we were going to the Rose Bowl. However it unfolded, we were left scratching our heads as to how that happened. But that was a long time ago. I felt bad for our team because I really felt like we deserved to be in the Rose Bowl that year, but we're in 2011 now and it is a whole different situation.'' Texas leads the series 4-0 and was ranked in the Top 10 in each previous meeting. The teams haven't met since 1970 in Austin when the Longhorns won, 56-15. Texas also took the first matchup in 1959 in Austin, 33-0. The other games were played in Berkeley, with Texas winning 28-3 in 1961 and 17-0 in 1969. Cal and Texas have scheduled a home-and-home series for the 2015 and 2016 seasons, with the Bears visiting Austin on Sept. 12, 2015, and Texas making a return trip to Berkeley on Sept. 10, 2016. ''It's always an exciting game and playing Cal will be a fun challenge for us,'' Brown said in a statement. ''Jeff Tedford is a great friend who is a tremendous football coach. He's the winningest coach in Cal history, so he's had the Bears playing at a consistently high level for a long time, and we look forward to playing them.'' Cal won three of its final four games. The Golden Bears were 4-5 in the Pac-12 and Texas had the same record in the Big 12.