News & Observer | newsobserver.com | 2008 NCAA Men's Bracket

Parsing possibilities for the St. Petersburg Bowl, the EagleBank Bowl, the New Orleans Bowl and the sought-after Humanitarian Bowl does encourage one to wonder how many of these bowls will be around in five years.

After all, there have been some long-running bowls that didn’t make it to the 21st Century. On the other hand, bowls continue to survive in places like Mobile, Ala., Shreveport, La., Birmingham, Ala., and El Paso, Texas, so who should count anyone out?

Which brings us to Tuesday’s Top Five, the Top Five Long-Lost Bowl Games.

5. Aloha Bowl, 1982-2000 — For years, a trip to Hawaii was the carrot at the end of a long season for a team that eked out a winning record. At one point, there were even two Hawaii bowl games.

The difficulty of selling tickets to East Coast teams and sponsorship problems put an end to the fun in 2000, but two years later the concept was resurrected — once Hawaii football became competitive and an automatic host team.

4. Cherry Bowl, 1984-85 — Nowadays, thanks in part to the growth of MAC football, the Motor City Bowl thrives downtown at Ford Field. Perhaps this ill-fated bowl game at the Pontiac Silverdome was just an idea before its time. Or perhaps it was just a bad idea.

3. Freedom Bowl, 1984-94 — Orange County’s bowl game, played at the Big A in Anaheim with a Pac-10 team usually the draw, passed quietly into history after 11 years, but in that brief history the Freedom Bowl consistently produced some of the most competitive bowl games of the season. Of the 11 games, six were decided by a touchdown or less.

2. Bluebonnet Bowl, 1959-87 — Bowl football has since returned to Houston, but back in the glory days of the Southwest Conference, this curiously named affair was considered a semi-prestigous bowl. N.C. State played in the Astrodome in 1974 (immortalized at Carter-Finley Stadium with an “Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl” banner) and North Carolina played indoors as well in 1980.

1. Garden State Bowl, 1978-81 — As if the idea of playing in New Jersey in December wasn’t appetizing enough, the four-year run of this ill-fated bowl attracted some of the least appetizing matchups possible.

Among the invitees: Rutgers, Temple and Wisconsin, at a time when both Rutgers and Wisconsin were years away from their current state of competitiveness (and Temple was at about the same state as it is now).