{"id":115603,"date":"2026-01-01T00:27:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T00:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/115603\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T00:27:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T00:27:25","slug":"arizona-smu-visit-the-uss-makin-island-ahead-of-holiday-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/115603\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona, SMU visit the USS Makin Island ahead of Holiday Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0.mak4_.jpg?ssl=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"508\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0.mak4_.jpg\" alt=\"Five young men don yellow firefighter garb while standing on a yellow surface on a ship.\" class=\"wp-image-361754\"   fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/a>Players tried on firefighter uniforms while aboard the USS Makin Island. (Photo by Kristos Zafiropoulos)<\/p>\n<p>It was a memorable day for <a href=\"https:\/\/smumustangs.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Southern Methodist University<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/arizonawildcats.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">University of Arizona<\/a> as the Navy\u2019s USS Makin Island welcomed both school\u2019s football teams before Friday\u2019s Holiday Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>Players gathered on the flight deck where Capt. Jose Arana called hosting the tour for the <a href=\"https:\/\/holidaybowl.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Holiday Bowl<\/a> teams \u201can absolute honor.\u201d He went on to compare the effort of Navy teams aboard ships to those of the Wildcats and Mustangs. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe leave everything on the table when we go out to sea, to bring the reign to the enemy if called to do so,\u201d Arana said. \u201cCome January 2nd, you guys are going to do the same thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timesofsandiego.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0mak3.jpg?ssl=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"513\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0mak3.jpg\" alt=\"Two men flank a service member aboard a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Makin Island.\" class=\"wp-image-361753\"  \/><\/a>L-R, SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee, Navy Capt. Jose Arana and Arizona head coach Brent Brennan during the pre-Holiday Bowl tour of the USS Makin Island. Lashlee\u2019s and Brennan\u2019s teams will compete in the Holiday Bowl on Friday Jan. 2 2026.<br \/>(Photo by Kristos Zafiropoulos)<\/p>\n<p>Each team\u2019s coach offered a gift to Arana. Brent Brennan of Arizona presented him with a replica of the Wildcats\u2019 \u201cTurnover Sword.\u201d SMU\u2019s Rhett Lashlee gifted the captain a Mustang helmet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have an incredible amount of respect for the U.S. military,\u201d Brennan said. \u201cWe get to play this great game, we get to have this incredible experience because of the sacrifice you and so many other Americans make for us. We appreciate you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But he couldn\u2019t resist a bit of partisanship. \u201cWe just want you to know, by the end of this thing you\u2019re going to be an Arizona Wildcat fan and that\u2019s all we care about,\u201d Brennan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As the tour continued, players from both teams competed in a rapid-fire drill to see who could suit up the fastest in the ship\u2019s firefighter gear. Service members received a gift too \u2013 Sports San Diego and the Holiday Bowl Host Committee gave the crew 100 tickets to the game. <\/p>\n<p>Approximately 3,000 tickets remain for a sellout crowd for Friday\u2019s game, with kickoff set for 5 p.m. at Snapdragon Stadium.\u00a0Arizona is a slight favorite.<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players tried on firefighter uniforms while aboard the USS Makin Island. (Photo by Kristos Zafiropoulos) It was a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1956,48167,74,76,75,13622,5435],"class_list":{"0":"post-115603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-holiday-bowl","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-smu-mustangs","14":"tag-u-s-navy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}