2013 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

Information about the Potato Bowl Bowl

By Tim Riordan@UBBullRun Dec 3, 2013, 9:47am EST

The Bowl is played in cold of Idaho on December 21st. The venue is Bronco Stadium home of the Boise State Bronco's and the infamous blue "Smurf Turf". A bowl which was set up in 1997 as a matchup between Conference USA and the Big West it has also had tie ins with the ACC and the now defunct Western Athletic Conference.

Under the support of various different sponsors it was known as the Humanitarian bowl from 1997 to 2010. Micron Technology adopted the Bowl in 1999 then in 2004 MPC a spin off from Micron pulled took over the Bowl. Roady's, a truck stop chain took the Bowl from 2007-2009 and the uDrove, another tech company picked up the Bowl in 2010.

Finally in 2011 the Idaho Potato Commission took over the bowl and gave it a proper bowl name. I'm a sucker for Bowls with somewhat meaningful names and what else should you call a bowl in Idaho? The Potato Bowl was born.

Around that same time the International bowl was folding up shop and the Mid American Conference was looking for a place to send their number three team. The game was then briefly a MAC versus WAC contest until the Western Athletic Conference mismanaged itself into history. After the 2012 season, the WAC stopped sponsoring football and the bowl committee announced that the Mountain West would pair up with the MAC.

Being a home game for Boise helped keep the bowl packed in it's early years, it also helped Boise secure a post season home filed advantage. The Bronco's are 3-1 in the Bowl game but they have not played on their home turf since Boston College laid them out in 2005. No MAC team has made multiple appearances NIU, Ohio, Bowling Green, and Toledo have all represented the MAC with the former two winning their games.

The reason Boise has not been there since 2005 is that they owned the WAC and were crashing BCS Bowls. This year there is a serious chance that the Bronco's will be at home, playing whoever comes from the MAC.

MAC Potato Bowl Games...

2009 - Idaho 43 - Bowling Green 42