The Valero Alamo Bowl consists of Stanford and TCU, programs having comparable frustrations of being good but not good enough in terms of the College Football Playoff.
They have knocked on the door of the College Football Playoff in recent years but have been unable to get in. They also are coming off defeats in their respective conference championship games.
No. 13 Stanford (9-4) lost a close game to USC 31-28 in the Pac-12 championship game. The Cardinal lost twice to the Trojans this season.
No. 15 TCU (10-3) also lost a pair of games to Oklahoma, including the Big 12 title game 41-17.