A year after staying home for the holidays with a 5-7 record, the Longhorns will be participating in a bowl game this season after accepting an invitation to head to San Diego to play in the Holiday Bowl against the 7-5 Cal Bears.
Despite not having faced each other since 1970, the Longhorns and Bears have some recent history, with Cal fans still upset about what they perceived as lobbying by Mack Brown to help the Longhorns receive the nod from the BCS to play Michigan in the 2004 Rose Bowl, the game that helped launch the 2005 title run. Texas will enter the game with an unblemished 4-0 record all-time against Cal.
The game, played at the home of the San Diego Chargers, Qaulcomm Stadium, will be televised by ESPN with a 7 pm CST kick on December 28th.
Fans can purchase tickets at www.texasboxoffice.com, with a priority deadline of Friday, December 9th.
More on the Cal Bears in coming days, but if you'd like an advance look at the Bears, head over to SBN's own California Golden Blogs.
[Update]: Head after the jump for Mack Brown's statement on heading to San Diego:
I'm really looking forward to playing in the Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl and getting out to San Diego once again. The Red Coats do such a wonderful job of making it a special week with great hospitality, fun events for the guys and topping it off with a terrific game experience. The city of San Diego is not only an ideal location, but is a great host as well. The city really embraces the teams and the game.
It's always an exciting game and playing Cal will be a fun challenge for us. 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.
This will be our fifth trip to the Holiday Bowl, but none of the guys on this team have had a chance to play in one, so I've told the kids that this will be one of the best bowl experiences they'll ever have."It should be extra special for Major Applewhite with him being inducted into the Holiday Bowl Hall of Fame this past summer. Major has played in the game, and now he'll have a chance to coach in it, so I know he'll be excited about that.