Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is an NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game that has been played annually since 1997 at Bronco Stadium on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho.

Beginning in 2013, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl will match a team from the Mountain West Conference against a team from the Mid-American Conference. The game is televised nationally on the ESPN family of networks. Cincinnati defeated Utah State, 35–19, in the inaugural game in 1997. The current Potato Bowl champions are the Utah State Aggies; they defeated the Toledo Rockets 41–15 in the 2012 game.

History
For its first four years, the then-named Humanitarian Bowl offered an automatic bid to the Big West Conference champion, after that conference lost its contract with the Las Vegas Bowl. From 1997 to 1999, the opponent was a team from Conference USA, while in 2000 an at-large was chosen. Beginning in 2000 and continuing until 2012, the automatic bid was given to the Western Athletic Conference, with the bid going to the conference's champion unless that team qualified for the Bowl Championship Series or was chosen by another bowl, or if Hawai'i was the WAC champion (Hawai'i has an automatic tie in to the Hawai'i Bowl, played in their home stadium, if it is bowl eligible). From 2000 until 2008, the Atlantic Coast Conference was to provide an opponent if it had enough bowl-eligible teams; otherwise an at-large would be chosen. In 2009, the Mountain West Conference replaced the ACC as the WAC's opponent, but ended its agreement after one season. For the 2010 playing, the Humanitarian Bowl inherited the MAC's International Bowl tie-in after the Toronto-based bowl folded, and have continued to keep it. After the 2012 season, the WAC stopped sponsoring football and the bowl committee announced that the Mountain West would return to playing in the bowl.

Boise State, the game's host school, holds the record for most bowl wins with three. Fresno State and Idaho also have multiple wins, with two each. Boise State's four appearances are the most of any team.

Sponsors
The game was sponsored by Micron Technology, an Idaho-based manufacturer, from 1999 to 2002 under the name Crucial.com, which sold computer memory upgrades from Micron. The bowl game then briefly had no sponsor for the January 2004 game. In December 2004, the name was changed to the MPC Computers Bowl. MPC Computers, which is also based in Idaho, was formerly MicronPC, the computer manufacturing division of Micron, but was later split off as a separate company. In April 2007, it was announced that the bowl will again be called the Humanitarian Bowl. In May 2007, Boise-based Roady's Truck Stops was announced as the new sponsor, thus renaming the game the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl. On May 25, 2010, mobile business application, uDrove became the sponsor of the Humanitarian Bowl, signing a four-year agreement to replace Roady's. On August 3, 2011 The Idaho Potato Commission signed six-year naming rights deal to sponsor the bowl, renaming it the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

With fifteen games played through 2011, it is the longest running cold weather bowl game currently in operation. The payout is $750,000, but teams are required to provide a corporate sponsor, purchase a minimum number of tickets, and stay at a selected hotel for a minimum stay. Because of this, 7–4 UCLA declined an invitation to the 2001 Humanitarian Bowl.

Beginning in 2008, the Humanitarian Bowl (in conjunction with the Truckload Carriers Association) featured a "Highway Angel", a truck driver who performed a heroic feat to save the life of another motorist. The 2008 Highway Angel, Leonard T. "Lenny" Roach, pulled a driver from a water-filled ditch near South Bend, Indiana, even though the wind chill factor was -20 °F. The 2009 Highway Angel, Michael Hunt, used his truck to push away a vehicle (and its driver) from a fiery collision near Spring Lake, North Carolina which had already claimed the life of the other driver. The 2010 Highway Angel, Shawn L. Hubbard was honored on December 18, 2010. While driving his truck near Diamond Bar, California, Hubbard came upon a fiery car crash in which the driver was deceased, but the passenger was still alive and trapped in the burning car. Hubbard freed the passenger and pulled him from the vehicle just moments before it was completely engulfed in flames. The 2011 Highway Angel, Marcus Beam, received his award on December 17, 2011. Beam was driving near Benson, North Carolina when he observed a speeding car strike another vehicle, causing the second car to overturn and roll down an embankment. While other motorists watched without offering help, Beam freed the female driver from the wreckage, and pulled two small children from the mangled vehicle as well. The 2012 Highway Angel, Kenny Cass, was honored on December 15, 2012. Cass was driving in Portland, Oregon when he witnessed a pick-up truck rear-end a 53’ tractor trailer and become wedged up to its windshield under the trailer. Cass made the scene safe by placing emergency triangles on the road, freed the pick-up truck driver from his vehicle while smoke billowed from beneath the truck and tended to the drivers wounds until emergency personnel arrived 20 minutes later.

Television coverage

 * List of Famous Idaho Potato Bowl broadcasters