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In the United States, a bowl game is traditionally a post-season college football game; however the term "bowl" has become synonymous with a major American football event and variations of the traditional post-season match-up between two successful college teams do exist. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the College football is American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, Colleges and military academies American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive Team sport known for mixing strategy with

The term "bowl" originated from the Rose Bowl Stadium, site of the first post-season college football games. The Rose Bowl is an outdoor football Stadium in Pasadena California, near Los Angeles. The Rose Bowl stadium takes its name and bowl-shaped design from the Yale Bowl, the prototype of many football stadiums in the United States. A bowl is a common open-top container used in many cultures to serve Food, and is also used for Drinking and storing other items The Yale Bowl is a football Stadium in New Haven Connecticut on the border of West Haven, about 1-1/2 miles west of Yale's main campus In college football parlance, the term "bowl" can also be used as a verb: as in a successful team going "bowling".

Contents

History

The history of the bowl game begins with the Tournament East-West football game, sponsored by the Tournament of Roses Association between Michigan and Stanford, a game which Michigan won 49-0. Originally titled the " Tournament East-West football game," what is now known as the Rose Bowl game was first played on January 1, 1902 The Tournament of Roses Parade was established and first held on January 1 1890 in Pasadena California, eight miles (13 km northeast of Downtown Los Angeles The University of Michigan Ann Arbor ( U of M, U-M, UM or simply Michigan) is a top-ranked Coeducational public research Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in The Tournament of Roses eventually sponsored an annual contest starting with the 1916 Tournament of Roses football game. Originally titled the " Tournament of Roses football game," the second of what is now known as the Rose Bowl game was played on January 1, With the 1923 Rose Bowl it began to be played at the newly completed Rose Bowl stadium, and thus the contest itself became known as the Rose Bowl game. The 1923 Rose Bowl, played on January 1 1923 was an American Football Bowl game. The Rose Bowl is an outdoor football Stadium in Pasadena California, near Los Angeles. The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American College football Bowl game, usually played on January 1 ( New Year's Day) at the Rose Other cities saw the promotional value for tourism that the Tournament of Roses parade and Rose Bowl carried and began to develop their own regional festivals which included college football games. The label "bowl" was attached to the festival name, even though the games were not always played in bowl-shaped stadiums.

The historic timing of bowl games, around the new year, is the result of two factors: originally bowls began in warm climates such as Southern California, Florida and Texas as a way to promote the area for tourism and business. Southern California, or So Cal, is defined as the southern portion of the U Florida ( is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the Texas ( is a state geographically located in the South Central United States and is also known as the Lone Star State. Since commercial air travel was either non-existent or very limited early on, the games were timed a substantial amount of time after the end of the regular season to allow fans to travel to the game site. [1]

The Rose Bowl was the only major college bowl game in 1930. By 1940, there were five major college bowl games: the Rose Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the Sun Bowl. The Cotton Bowl Classic is a United States College football Bowl game played annually since 1937 at the self-named stadium in Dallas Texas The Orange Bowl is an annual College football game that is usually played the first week in January in the Miami Florida metro area in the United States The Sugar Bowl is an annual American College football Bowl game played in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans Louisiana. The Sun Bowl is an annual College football Bowl game that is played usually at the end of December in El Paso Texas. By 1950, the number had increased to eight games. In 1960 there were still eight major college bowl games, but by 1970 the number had increased again, to 11 games. The number continued to increase, to 15 games in 1980, to 19 games in 1990, 25 games in the year 2000 and ultimately, 32 games in 2006. Up until around the 1950s, games were played solely on New Years Day, with few exceptions. New Year's Day is the first day of the Year. On the modern Gregorian calendar, it is celebrated on January 1, as it was also in ancient Rome (though In the late 1950s, more bowl games began playing their games earlier in December. Also bowl games began to be set in cities which were not thought of as winter vacation destinations due to their colder climates.

Currently, college football bowl games are played from mid-December to mid-January. As the number of bowl games has increased, the number of games a team would need to win to be invited to a bowl game has decreased. With a twelve game schedule, a team may have six wins and be invited to a bowl game. As of 2007, the University of Alabama has played in and won more bowl games than any other school, with 55 appearances and 31 victories.

Professional bowl games

The National Football League also used the name "bowl" for some of its playoff games. The National Football League ( NFL) is the largest professional American football league. While the NFL Championship was not named a Bowl initially, the league instituted the Pro Bowl as the name of its all-star game in 1951, and introduced the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl as a matchup of the two second-place teams in each division from 1960 to 1969. Throughout its history the National Football League and other leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champion including a period of interleague In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the All-star game of the National Football League (NFL The Playoff Bowl (officially the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl) was a post-season game for third place in the NFL, played ten times following the 1960

When the professional football AFL-NFL merger occurred in 1970, the AFL-NFL World Championship Game became the NFL's championship and is now known as the Super Bowl, as it has been named since 1968. The AFL-NFL merger of 1970 was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues professional American football, the Super Bowl is the Championship game of the National Football League (NFL There has also been the American Bowl, a preseason match held overseas, and various one-time games informally nicknamed "bowls," such as the Bounty Bowl, Ice Bowl, Snow Bowl, Freezer Bowl, Fog Bowl and the proposed China Bowl. The American Bowl was a series of National Football League pre-season exhibition games that were held at sites outside the United States between 1986 and The National Football League exhibition season refers to the NFL 's pre-season games before the NFL regular season starts The Bounty Bowl was the name given to two notorious NFL games held in 1989 between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys. In NFL lore the Freezer Bowl ( January 10, 1982) was the 1981 AFC Championship Game between the San Diego Chargers and In American football, the Fog Bowl was the name given to the December 31, 1988 National Football League (NFL The China Bowl is the name of a proposed National Football League (NFL pre-season Exhibition game scheduled to take place in August 2009 between the New

As a result, other professional football leagues used or use the name "Bowl" for their championships, such as the World Football League, NFL Europa (both used the name "World Bowl") and the Arena Football League ("ArenaBowl"). The World Football League was an American football league that played in 1974 and part of 1975. NFL Europa was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. The World Bowl was the American football Championship game of NFL Europa, similar to the Super Bowl of the National Football League. The Arena Football League (AFL was founded in 1987 as an American football indoor league. The ArenaBowl is the Arena Football League 's championship game The Canadian Football League nicknames one of their rivalries as the Banjo Bowl. The Canadian Football League (CFL ( Ligue canadienne de football (LCF in The Banjo Bowl is the annual rematch game between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL after the

Bowl games today

Post-season bowls

See also: Automatic bids to non-BCS bowls

At the NCAA top level of football, the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (known as Division I-A from 1978 through 2005), teams must earn the right to be bowl eligible by winning at least six games and by not having a losing record during the season. There are 29 Non- BCS Bowl games in the 2008-09 NCAA College Football bowl season. The National Collegiate Athletic Association ( NCAA, often pronounced "N-C-Double-A" is a voluntary association of about 1200 institutions conferences organizations Division I (or D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States Division I (or D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States The term bowl eligible refers to any NCAA football team that is able to play in one of the 34 bowl games that are a part of the Division I Football They are then invited to a bowl game based on their placement and the tie-ins that the conference has to each bowl game. As per NCAA rules, six-win teams without an automatic bowl tie-in cannot be picked above an available seven-win team. [2] Bowls are popular among coaching staffs because the NCAA allows college teams going to bowl games extra weeks of practice they would otherwise not have; they also provide many teams a chance to end the season on a winning note; in addition bowl games sometimes offer huge sums of money to the teams involved; these facts make even minor bowl games popular among teams. For the 2007 season, 64 of the 119 Division I FBS teams will play in a bowl game. At lower levels, the only bowl game is typically the national championship game.

Also, unlike the current BCS system, the majority of bowls kept strict agreements with certain conferences to invite teams from those conferences. The Bowl Championship Series ( BCS) is a selection system designed to give the top two teams in the NCAA FBS Bowl Subdivision System an opportunity to compete in a "national For example, the Rose Bowl traditionally invites the champion of the Pac-10 and the Big Ten conferences. The Pacific-10 Conference ( Pac-10) is a college athletic conference which operates in the western United States. These conference tie-ins often led to situations where the top-ranked teams in the country could not play each other in a bowl game. The BCS attempts to match up the top two ranked teams in the country to determine a single national championship; in effect this creates a two-team playoff for the championship. A playoff or final in Sports is a game or series of games played after the regular season is over with the goal of determining a league champion or a similar accolade

Small-College Bowls

Aside from the BCS System and the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, there are a few bowl games for smaller colleges. One such example is the Victory Bowl sponsored by the NCCAA, a group that does not restrict its membership to either NCAA or NAIA. The Victory Bowl is the championship football game between schools that sponsor football and are members of the NCCAA and did not qualify for either the NCAA or The National Christian College Athletic Association ( NCCAA) is an association of approximately 100 Christian universities, Colleges and The National Collegiate Athletic Association ( NCAA, often pronounced "N-C-Double-A" is a voluntary association of about 1200 institutions conferences organizations The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ( NAIA) seeks to fully integrate life academics sport and fitness into the higher education environment

Also sanctioned by the NAIA is the Wheat Bowl--a pre-season bowl game. The Wheat Bowl is the only National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics endorsed Pre-Season Bowl game. For this particular game, the organization has found scheduling a smaller stadium more viable at the beginning of the season than at the end of the season. [3]

Special games and rivalries

Bowl games that are not part of the post-season are traditional games against rival schools such as Iron Bowl and Egg Bowl and the Friends of Coal Bowl pitting Marshall University against West Virginia University . The Iron Bowl is the name given to the annual intercollegiate football game between the teams of Auburn University and the University of Alabama. History Up until 1926 Ole Miss had claimed only five wins in the previous twenty-three meetings of the teams History Despite both teams being from the state of West Virginia, hard feelings and politics kept the teams from playing for the most part Marshall University is a Coeducational public Research university in Huntington West Virginia, founded in 1837 as a private subscription West Virginia University is a Coeducational public Research university in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Recently, the term "bowl" has been added to other games that have some special note or sub-plot to the actual game, especially in the National Football League. The National Football League ( NFL) is the largest professional American football league. Examples of this are the Bowden Bowl, Manning Bowl and Ice Bowl. Robert Cleckler Bowden (born November 8, 1929 in Birmingham Alabama) better known as Bobby Bowden, is the current head College football However, any game that is part of the post season is considered a bowl game, even if it isn't a formal bowl game, such as all-star games. The Super Bowl, the NFL's championship game, started as a "world championship" between the champions of the rival American Football League and NFL in the same way many college bowl games bring together the champions of different college conferences. professional American football, the Super Bowl is the Championship game of the National Football League (NFL Note There were three earlier and unrelated major American professional football leagues of the same name One in 1926, one in 1936-1937 and one in 1940-1941

There have also been pre-season games carrying the "bowl" title, including the Mirage Bowl and Glasnost Bowl. The Mirage Bowl was an annual College football game hosted in Tokyo Japan from 1977 through 1993 The Glasnost Bowl was an attempt to stage an American College football game in Moscow, USSR at the beginning of the 1989 season.

The phrase Toilet Bowl is sometimes used jocularly to refer to a game that is particularly poor in play quality. A toilet is a Plumbing fixture and disposal system primarily intended for the disposal of the bodily wastes: Urine and fecal matter.

All-star bowl games

Following the Bowl Championship Series, a series of all-star bowl games round out the post-season schedule. These games showcase the best players from a particular region, just as the NFL showcases its all-stars in the annual post-season Pro Bowl. The National Football League ( NFL) is the largest professional American football league. In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the All-star game of the National Football League (NFL Such college all-star games include the East-West Shrine Game, the Hula Bowl, the Senior Bowl, and the newly-established Texas vs. The Nation Game. The East-West Shrine Game is an annual post-season College football all-star game played each January since 1925 The Hula Bowl is an independently administered post-season invitational College football game held each year in Hawaii, currently at Aloha Stadium Senior Bowl is a post-season College football exhibition game played in Mobile Alabama which showcases the best NFL draft prospects of those collegiate The Texas vs The Nation Game is a post-season College football all-star game that was established in 2006 as part of the college football post-season

For the 2006 (with bowl games taking place in 2007) season, the BCS added a fifth bowl that would decide the national championship. In the first game, called, descriptively, the BCS National Championship Game, and played in Glendale, Arizona, the Florida Gators defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes, 41-14. The 2007 Tostitos BCS National Championship Game or BCS Title Game was played on January 8 2007 at the University of Phoenix Glendale ( is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, located about nine miles northwest from Downtown Phoenix.

See also

References

  1. ^ Frank Deford, The earmarks of athletics: Sheer lunacy of bowl games defies all traditional logic, SportsIllustrated. com, November 29, 2006.
  2. ^ Stewart Mandel, Bowl Projections: ACC, Big 12 title games will cause big domino effect, SportsIllustrated. com, November 27, 2006.
  3. ^ Wheat Bowl - Great Bend - Kansas - Football

External links

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