LSU Football: 3 reasons to watch 2019 Playstation Fiesta Bowl vs. UCF

UCF isn’t in the College Football Playoff, but they play an SEC foe in LSU football in the New Year’s Six for a second straight year.

Once again, UCF was shut out of the College Football Playoff despite a 25-game winning streak and two consecutive American Athletic Conference titles. Instead of earning a chance to play for the national championship, Josh Heupel’s Knights are being sent to Arizona for the school’s second appearance in the Fiesta Bowl in the past six years.

Back in 2013, the Knights earned a trip to Glendale as the champions of the AAC in the first season after it rebranded out of the realignment of the Big East. That year the league still held an automatic-qualifying berth into the BCS, but it nevertheless felt like a Cinderella story when UCF squared off against a then-dynamic Baylor side.

LSU, meanwhile, heads to the desert for the first time since the game was launched in 1971. The Tigers finished third in the SEC West after their seven-overtime defeat to Texas A&M at the end of the regular season, but they will still be a formidable foe for a UCF team looking to make a statement and enter 2019 on a 26-game winning streak.

There is plenty of intrigue heading into this New Year’s Six showdown. Here are five reasons why you won’t want to miss the Playstation Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1.