SAN DIEGO — Brent Brennan has many bowl memories, both as a coach and player.
Ahead of No. 17 Arizona's contest with SMU for the Trust & Will Holiday Bowl in San Diego, the UA head coach was asked about his favorite and worst bowl memories.
Brennan recalled his favorite bowl memory from his playing days at UCLA, when the Bruins lost to Wisconsin, 21-16, in the Rose Bowl. Then a receiver for the Bruins, Brennan was instructed by UCLA wide receivers coach Rick Neuheisel to "just go out there and stand on the rose (midfield) and do a (360-degree turn) and take it all in."
UCLA plays its home games at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, "but this is not that. This is something different," Brennan said.
"That was a pretty special memory for me," he added.
Brennan's worst bowl memory was in Tucson during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brennan was the head coach at San Jose State and the Mountain West champions were at risk of forfeiting the Arizona Bowl at what is now called Casino Del Sol Stadium.
San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan reacts after his Spartans made a goal line stand against Ball State in the second quarter of the Arizona Bowl, Arizona Stadium, Tucson, Ariz., December 31, 2020.
After beating Boise State in the Mountain West championship in Las Vegas, Brennan met with San Jose State's "leadership council" about staying in Las Vegas before the bowl game. The players opted to go home for the holidays.
"They hadn't been home for like seven (weeks)," Brennan said. "The problem is, when they went home, everybody got Covid."
Sixteen SJSU players couldn't travel and had to quarantine due to players testing positive for COVID-19 and contact tracing. Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year and San Jose State defensive end Cade Hall didn't travel to Tucson and SJSU was down six offensive linemen for the Arizona Bowl.
"It was wrong," Brennan said.
During the week of the Arizona Bowl, the team stayed at JW Marriott Tucson Starr Pass, "but it was a ghost town. It wasn't like there was a bowl experience to it," Brennan said.
In the days leading up to the first Mountain West-versus-MAC matchup in the Arizona Bowl, more San Jose State players tested positive for COVID-19.
San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan watches a replay on the big screen during a loss to Ball State in the Arizona Bowl on Dec. 31, 2020.
"We were trying to not let that be the story, so we didn't talk about it with the media, then we get to game day and we're missing 30-plus players and both coordinators," Brennan said.
With 38 minutes on the clock before kickoff, Pima County mandated San Jose State to perform another team-wide round of coronavirus testing. SJSU chief of staff Ben Thienes, who now has the same role at Arizona, alerted Brennan about the team testing just minutes before kickoff.
"I can't say what I said at the time, but he was like, 'No, I'm serious. If we don't do it, they're going to cancel the game,'" Brennan recalled. "I'm like, 'OK.' I whistle, everybody gets up, we get up and walk through the training room and every person in our organization had to get swabbed. I felt like at that moment, we were crushed, because everyone was already feeling a certain way of players and coaches not being a part of the game, so it was already pretty tough. When we had to do that, everyone thought they were going to test positive and stay here for a week."
San Jose State lost to Ball State, 34-13, which was the Spartans' only loss of the season in 2020.
"We did not play well," Brennan said. "We got our tails kicked. It's a long story, but that's my worst bowl memory."
Texas Tech quarterback Seth Doege holds the championship trophy after winning the Meineke Car Care Bowl NCAA college football game against Minnesota,Dec. 28, 2012, in Houston. Texas Tech defeated Minnesota 34-31.
When Arizona offensive coordinator Seth Doege played quarterback at Texas Tech, he led the Raiders to a win over Minnesota in the 2012 Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas and was named MVP of the bowl game.
Bowl games are "why you put hard work in the summer," Doege said.
"This is why you do all the team bonding," Doege added. "This is why you stay the course when you take a tough loss in the middle of the season; this is the reward. This is the fun part. ... I remember having fun. My senior year, it was the last time you were going to play with the guys you went through all this with. You went through all this adversity, you had to respond to all this adversity, grow through the adversity with. All the hard times, all the good times."
Added Doege: "This is the last couple of weeks you get to truly play football with your best friends, and I think that's rewarding for bowl prep. ... Nobody in the world thought we were going to win nine games and now we're in the Holiday Bowl? We should enjoy this. ... I'm excited to watch these guys go attack this 10th win, because they deserve it. ... These guys deserve to win ten (games). I know they're hungry to win. I'm excited to go to war with them one more time."
Arizona head coach Brent Brennan has a backslap for Arizona offensive lineman Tristan Bounds (71) after the Wildcats scored in the last seconds to take the lead, and eventually the game, over Kansas, Nov. 8, 2025, in Tucson.
A win over SMU on Friday would mark the fifth Arizona team to eclipse 10 wins — and it would be the first bowl win for Brennan as a head coach; he's 0-3 in bowl games as a head coach. Brennan is 2-1 in bowl games as an assistant coach at San Jose State and Oregon State. As a player at UCLA, he's 0-2.
Win, lose or draw, "this team is a special group of young men and I think you see that in how they celebrate each other and how they enjoy practicing together and how they enjoy being around each other," Brennan said.
"Since we've been bowl eligible, we've been talking about this extra life that this team gets by getting to go to a bowl game. That's extra time this special group of people get to be together."
The former always enhances the bowl experience.
Said Brennan: "The most important thing about this experience is us playing good football Friday night against SMU."
