This holiday season, the NIU football team will finally board a plane. Problem is, no one knows where it’s heading yet.

The Huskies will either take off for the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La. or head west to the Silicon Valley Football Classic in San Jose, Calif. Everything revolves around the winner of Saturday’s No. 4 California vs. Southern Mississippi game.

So the question is: Where do the NIU fans and players want to go?

“Cali,” said sophomore finance major Matt Libman and a few of his friends in unison. “It’s just a much cooler place to watch NIU play.”

“Yeah,” sophomore mechanical engineer majors Jared Baker and Dave Grollemond agreed. “There’s a lot more tradition in California. I mean, that’s where the best bowls are always at.”

Junior elementary education major, Dana Schmidt also said California since she thought it would be warmer.

Truth be told, San Jose is only slightly warmer. According to Cityrating.com, the Bay-area city has an average December temperature of 49.4 degrees compared to Shreveport’s 48.2.

San Jose is located 49 minutes from San Francisco and just less than two hours from the state capital, Sacramento, giving NIU fans more places to visit.

On the other hand, Shreveport has Minden, with a population of 14,500, as its closest major city and is six hours away from New Orleans.

“But the Independence Bowl is bigger, plus it’s a much shorter drive from [DeKalb],” senior industrial engineer Alex Sakelaris said.

And he’s right. Shreveport is less than half the drive of San Jose, 14 hours of driving compared to more than 32.

Though the students seem to want California, NIU wide receiver Sam Hurd wants to head south.

“I have a lot of family in Louisiana, so you know if we go there, I’ll get a chance to lay back and kick it,” the San Antonio, Texas, native said.

So both places have their perks and also a few downfalls, but as Hurd said, the team is all smiles no matter where its plane takes them.