San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl

The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl is a college football bowl game that takes place in San Diego each year. It was created in 2005 as a companion to the Holiday Bowl. The bowl has had ties with both the Mountain West Conference and the Western Athletic Conference, and Navy and Army also had agreements in place with the bowl in recent years.

In the 2011 edition of the bowl game, TCU defeated Louisiana Tech, 31-24, in the temporarily-renamed Snapdragon Stadium.

The Poinsettia Bowl was created by the organizers of another college bowl held in San Diego, the Holiday Bowl. The Holiday Bowl started in 1978 and was such a success that organizers wanted to bring a second game to San Diego. That game was the Poinsettia Bowl.

Colorado State played the Navy Midshipmen in the inaugural bowl, and that connection with the Academy would prove to be a huge asset to the bowl. There are several naval bases in and around San Diego, providing a large fan base for the game. Colorado State came to the game as the runner-up of the MWC, which also has ties to the city.

Army was invited to the 2006 edition if the team became bowl eligible, but it finished the season with a losing record and missed out. Instead, WAC representative TCU took on Northern Illinois. The following year, Navy-Utah set a new record for attendance at the Poinsettia Bowl.

The Pac-10 set a new deal with the bowl in 2008, that the conference's seventh-place squad (in 2008) or sixth-place squad (in 2009 and 2010) would play in the bowl. If not enough Pac-10 teams were bowl-eligible, a WAC squad would replace it. That happened in 2008, when Boise State replaced a Pac-10 representative to take on TCU -- a game that was repeated the following year in a BCS bowl. It became the most-watched Poinsettia Bowl ever as well as the highest-rated pre-Christmas bowl ever on ESPN.

Navy returned to the Poinsettia Bowl for the third time in 2010, to take on San Diego State. Due to heavy rains in the San Diego area in the week leading up to the game, the stadium was flooded just 24 hours before kickoff. However, maintenance workers were able to clear the field in time to play the game as scheduled. San Diego State went on to defeat Navy, 35-14.

In 2011, TCU served as the MWC's representative in the game, the final game the Horned Frogs played in the conference. They defeated Louisiana Tech, 34-27.

The San Diego County Credit Union has been the title sponsor since the bowl's inception in 2005.