Independence Bowl Inks Deal Between Mountain West and ACC in 2010

by Jeremy Mauss on Oct 7, 2009 3:55 PM PDT in News

The Mountain West and the ACC are partnering for the Independence Bowl starting in 2010 this is a post Christmas game and could quite possibly feature a ranked Mountain West team. The Mountain West would be sending their third pick, while the ACC selection is not mentioned, but would be the fourth of fifth team.

This would give the MWC five bowl games in 2010 and the details do not say if this is a one year deal similar to the Humanitarian Bowl or if it will be from 2010-2013. This most likely means the Humanitarian Bowl is out of the running for a future deal with the MWC, because I doubt the league would be able to fill six bowl slots. Personally, the Humanitarian Bowl would be the one to keep because that features the WAC champ which is usually a highly ranked Boise State squad, and then dump the New Mexico Bowl.

The location is not ideal unless TCU is the third pick, but on the plus side the Independence Bowl pays out $1.1 million which is 100 thousand more then the Las Vegas Bowl which gets first pick; those figures are according to 2009.

This is a good bowl because it pits the MWC against a BCS league with the ACC opponent and as long as it is above the number six position it is a good move by league Commissioner Craig Thompson.

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on the utah site it does not mention the acc team rank out of their 12 teams that would go to independence bowl

you said you think it will be 4th or 5th. do you have any firm info on this? i’m just curious. i think it will be 6th or 7th placed team in their conference. not much difference between the 4 – 8th place team in acc. your talking about a team that will have 4 or 5 losses. our third place team would have 2-4 losses.

by wolfmanshowlforever on Oct 7, 2009 4:24 PM PDT reply actions

speculation

Because the ACC is pulling out of the Gator Bowl which needs to be replaced so the other bowls would move up. Official announcement is to be thursday or friday

Mountain West Connection

by Jeremy Mauss on Oct 7, 2009 6:01 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions

#4 is out the question. #5 is questionable.

No way it’s a 4th or 5th team from the ACC.

ACC #2 to Chick-fil-A.
ACC #3 (up from 4) to Champs Sports.
ACC #4 (up from 5) to Music City at $1.6M.

The cut between #5 and #6 will come down to Meineke Car and Independence. If payouts stay the same — and there’s no guarantee of that until official numbers come out — Independence is $100K more than Meineke. However, that’s a drop in the bucket.

Almost every ACC team is going to want to go to Charlotte (for fan access) instead of to Shreveport. (The Independence had that problem in the SEC; Florida outright said it wouldn’t go a few seasons back.)

And, if the folks in Charlotte thought they’d lose that 5th selection, I’m sure they come up with $100K pretty quickly to match Independence.

by HuddleUpTexas.com on Oct 13, 2009 4:38 PM PDT up reply actions