Armed Forces Bowl

The Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl is an annual postseason college football bowl game that was inaugurated in 2003 as PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl reflecting the sponsorship of PlainsCapital Bank. In 2005, the game was without corporate sponsorship. In 2006, Fort Worth based Bell Helicopter Textron took over sponsorship, and thus it became officially known as the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl; Alltel Communications was originally to assume the title sponsorship of the game with its wireless division, but the deal fell through. The contest is one of six bowls produced by ESPN Regional Television (a/k/a ESPN Plus) and has been televised annually on ESPN since its inception. Armed Forces Insurance is the official Insurance Partner of the Armed Forces Bowl and has sponsored the Great American Patriot Award, presented at halftime at the Bowl, since 2008.

The game is traditionally played in the 44,008-seat Amon G. Carter Stadium on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, featuring a team from Mountain West Conference and a team from Conference USA. In addition, both of the D-I independent military academies (Army and Navy) are eligible to participate if either the MWC or C-USA cannot provide a bowl-eligible team (the third football-playing military academy, Air Force, is eligible as a MWC member, while the Coast Guard Academy is D-III). On April 27, 2011 it was announced that if Brigham Young University (former MWC member, now a D-I independent) becomes bowl eligible and not playing in a BCS game, it was also eligible to participate. (BYU, in fact, did qualify for this game.)

On August 15, 2010, TCU announced plans for the renovation of Amon G. Carter Stadium to take place immediately after the 2010 football season. Thus, the 2010 and 2011 Armed Forces Bowl were held at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on the campus of Southern Methodist University in the Dallas enclave of University Park. The game will return to Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth in 2012 after construction on that stadium is completed.

The bowl's partnership with the Big 12 Conference ended with the 2005 season. From the 2006 through the 2009 playings of the game the Mountain West Conference was signed to provide a team to face either a team from the Pacific-10 Conference or Conference USA (depending on the year; Pac-10 teams would play in odd number years while C-USA teams would play in even numbered years). As such, the 2006 and 2008 games featured Conference USA teams Tulsa and Houston, respectively, whereas California represented the Pac-10 in 2007. The Pac-10 was unable to send a representative to the game in 2009, so Conference USA sent Houston to the game for a second consecutive year. In 2010, since the Mountain West did not have enough eligible teams and Army was bowl eligible, they played SMU in the Armed Forces Bowl.