Sun Bowl 2015: WSU players to spend Christmas in El Paso, receive lots of bowl gifts

'Tis the season for bowl games, meaning your Washington State Cougars and 79 other programs who did or did not win at least six games have earned extra practices to develop their young guys, added a nice little recruiting pitch to their resumés and get to play a celebration game of sorts in a far-away oasis, such as El Paso, Texas.

Those are fun things from a football perspective, but for the players, the biggest perk of all is the bowl game gifts they'll each receive. Sports Business Journal released its annual bowl game gifts preview and the Cougars will be taking home a nice haul from the Sun Bowl:

Sun Bowl gift package

• Gift suite
• Timely Watch Co. Silvertone watch
• Majestic Pro Base fleece pullover
• Ogio Politan backpack
• A cap
• A commemorative coin

The real prize, though, is the gift suite. What's a gift suite, you ask? Well, the Sun Bowl will provide a bunch of cool gifts and place a point value on each item. The players, assigned a certain number of points, will then get to do some shopping of their own. This usually occurs early in the week, so Christmas will come early for the Cougs.

NCAA rules allow bowl games to provide up to $550 worth of bowl gifts for up to 125 participants, including players, staff, VIPs and others. Those won't be the only gifts the players will receive, however, as WSU and the Pac-12 are each allowed to provide additional gifts worth up to $400.

All in all, its a cool reward for the players, staff and others at the end of a long football season.