The UCLA Bruins face off against the Kansas State Wildcats on Tuesday, Dec. 26 in the college football bowl season, and here is all the info you need to watch.
The 2017 Cactus Bowl features a matchup of two teams who fell way short of their own preseason expectations. The Kansas State Wildcats went 7-5 this year, and their head coach Bill Snyder is coming back for another season in 2018 even though he has been battling cancer. The UCLA Bruins, on the other hand, are getting a new start after they let go of Jim Mora and brought in Chip Kelly to liven up Westwood. UCLA had a lot of hype this offseason with Josh Rosen leading the way. Rosen held his own, throwing for 3717 yards and 26 touchdowns, but the Bruins just could not fight the injury bug, as they lost seven key players as the season went along. It will be interesting to see if Rosen will even play, as he exited UCLA’s last game against Cal with a shoulder injury, and has aspirations of declaring for the NFL Draft.
Even though they had a dual-threat quarterback at the helm, Kansas State really found trouble establishing any sort of offensive identity this season. Jesse Ertz passed for 930 yards and seven touchdowns while rushing for 336 yards and three touchdowns, while Alex Barnes, their starting tailback, rushed for 702 yards and six touchdowns.
Details for the Cactus Bowl are below:
Date: Tuesday, Dec. 26
Start Time: 9 p.m. ET
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Stadium: Chase Field
TV Info: ESPN
Live Stream: WatchESPN, FuboTV
Next: All the live stream info in one place
It will be interesting to see whose style of play will be the first to give in. Kansas State loves to pound the ball on the ground, but it sometimes has an explosive passing game even with a quarterback carousel going on in their backfield. KSU may like to play slow, but UCLA is just the opposite. Josh Rosen is the one who keeps that offense, but it will be interesting to see how the offense could change if he decides not to play.