2008 Humanitarian Bowl

2008 Humanitarian Bowl

The 2008 Humanitarian Bowl was a postseason college football bowl game between the Maryland Terrapins and the Nevada Wolf Pack on December 30, 2008. The game featured two conference tie-ins: the University of Maryland represented the Atlantic Coast Conference and Nevada represented the Western Athletic Conference. The final score of 42–35 in favor of Maryland exceeded total-points predictions by as much as 17 and tied the all-time Humanitarianbowl record.

About 2008 Humanitarian Bowl in brief

Summary 2008 Humanitarian BowlThe 2008 Humanitarian Bowl was a postseason college football bowl game between the Maryland Terrapins and the Nevada Wolf Pack on December 30, 2008. The game featured two conference tie-ins: the University of Maryland represented the Atlantic Coast Conference and Nevada represented the Western Athletic Conference. The final score of 42–35 in favor of Maryland exceeded total-points predictions by as much as 17 and tied the all-time Humanitarianbowl record. It was the 12th edition of the Humanitarian bowl. The bowl was sponsored by the New Plymouth, Idaho-based company Roady’s Truck Stops, which claims to be the largest chain of truck stops in the United States. The ACC had a contractual tie-in with the game that afforded the bowl organizing committee the eighth pick of the conference’s bowl-eligible teams. In 2008, the ACC experienced a season of unusual parity and fielded an NCAA-record number of ten bowl- eligible teams. Six of those had identical 4–4 conference records, and the remaining four had 5–3 conference records. The WAC has provided a team for the game every year since 2001 and has generally fielded its champion in the game. In a preemptive move, officials conducted negotiations with Ball State of the Mid-American Conference in an effort to arrange a “Battle of the Unbeatens” with Boise State. However, Ball State officials were unhappy with the home-field advantage that would have been given to Boise State and the expenses associated with traveling to Idaho.

Ball State, which lost the MAC Championship Game and ended its perfect record, declined the overtures and instead met Tulsa in the 2009 GMAC Bowl. That season, an economic recession led to the inaugural EagleBank Bowl in Washington, D.C., which followed by the inaugural Music City Bowl in San Francisco. The winner of the EaglesBank Bowl would be no lower than the loser of the San Francisco Bowl, which would be the winner of that season’s Emerald Bowl. The loser of that game would be selected by the Music City bowl and the winner would be chosen by the San Diego Bowl. Among the eligible teams, N. C. State had the only non-winning overall record and was therefore forced by NCAA rules to find an at-large berth outside of the ACC tie- in games. The Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia had the first-pick eligible teams after the BCS Championship Game. The Music Citybowl was followed by The Gator Bowl in Orlando, Florida and the Champs Sports Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee. The ChampsSports Bowl was the first pick eligible teams in Nashville after the Gatorbowl in Nashville. The Emerald Bowl was then followed by the inaugural Meineke Carine Care Care Care Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina; the MusicCity Bowl in North Carolina and the Emerald Bowl inSan Francisco, California; the inaugural Estero Bowl in Seattle, Washington; and the inaugural GoldenEye Bowl in Los Angeles, California.