New Orleans Football Bowl Games
Crescent City Hosts Record Three Bowl Events in 17 Days
The New Orleans Bowl, Sugar Bowl and BCS national championship help the Big Easy to recover from Katrina. The games are major milestones for Hawaii and Florida Atlantic.
Just a little over two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans set the record for hosting the most college football bowl games in one season: three bowl games within 17 days. Louisiana Superdome Spokesman Bill Curl said no other city has ever hosted three games in one season.
The New Orleans Bowl Lineup
Here’s how they lined them up, all in the Louisiana Superdome:
Dec. 21, 2007 – The R+L Carriers-sponsored New Orleans Bowl, matching the Memphis Tigers (7-5) of Conference USA against the Florida Atlantic Owls (7-5), co-champions of the Sun Conference.
Jan. 1, 2008—The All State-sponsored Sugar Bowl, matching the 5th ranked Georgia Bulldogs (10-2) of the Southeastern Conference against the 10th ranked Hawaii Warriors (12-0), the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) champions.
Jan. 7, 2008—The All State-sponsored BCS national championship game matching the No. 1 ranked and Big Ten Conference Champion Ohio State Buckeyes (11-1) against the No. 2 ranked Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers (10-2), the Southeastern Conference champion.
Bowls Attract Teams and Fans From Six Schools in Six States
That’s six teams from six states, each accompanied by thousands of fans, pouring into New Orleans hotels and restaurants within three weeks.
All that followed one of the city’s most popular sports events--the five annual state high school football championship games played in the Superdome Dec. 7-8. With 10 prep teams and their fans and the Louisiana high school football coaching association pouring in from all over the state that weekend, the annual high school championship games are almost the equivalent of a fourth college bowl game, in both excitement and the generation of tourism.
New Orleans hotel operators and restaurateurs usually smile a lot at the end of football seasons.
Actually the only newcomer to the New Orleans bowl schedule after the 2007 season was the BCS national championship game. It rotates annually between New Orleans and other cities. The New Orleans Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the high school championships are annual New Orleans events which have returned to the city after leaving one year in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Bowl games are nothing new to Memphis, Georgia, Ohio State and LSU, but the New Orleans Bowl and the Sugar Bowl are special milestones for Florida Atlantic and Hawaii.
Historic Milestones for Florida Atlantic and Hawaii Football
For Florida Atlantic it was the first bowl invitation ever and the school called it "an historic event." The Owls, who moved into Division 1A in 2005, boasted that no other football program had ever received a bowl invitation so early in its development.
For Hawaii, one fan said the 12-0 season and the Sugar Bowl invitation was "the greatest thing since statehood." It was Hawaii’s first invitation to a BCS qualified bowl. Despite the distance from Hawaii to New Orleans, the school sold its 13,500 ticket allotment three days after the bowl announcement.
The New Orleans Bowl was the fourth bowl invitation for Memphis in five years. However, its fans and its "Sound of the South Band" planned to make their visit a special occasion by scheduling "a True Blue Celebration" in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square the night before the game.
