Home-field Bowl Games

In the 2023 Bowl Season, something happened which I thought was a bit of an anomaly in College Football. Two teams in Bowl Season were playing a Bowl Game in their home stadium, Memphis and South Alabama. I noticed that both teams appeared to have a big home-field advantage and it seemed to be a bit unfair to Iowa State and Eastern Michigan respectively to have to play in these games.

I began to dig into this a little further and realized this may have happened a large amount of times in the history of College Football. I’ll admit I felt a little stupid about this premise when I remembered some schools purposely created a bowl game to allow their school to play in a bowl game. “Hey, we should have a bowl game in our own stadium and then we could play in the bowl game. It’ll be great, every other school is doing it too!”

As the Commish, I tried to figure out what bowls really have had the most “Home” teams play in their own stadium they played in the regular season and then played in a Bowl game in that very same stadium. Also, I wanted to break down the record of the teams in these Home-Field Bowl games to see if there was a discernible home-field bowl advantage or did it not matter at all.

Also, I didn’t want to go through all the defunct bowl games (at least at this time) and kept it to this List of College Bowl Games from Wikipedia. One final thing before we begin, I am using the current bowl name of the Bowl game.

So who has had the most Home-field Bowl Games and who was the best on their home field in these bowl games?

Orange Bowl - Miami (FL)

• 9 Times (‘35, ‘46, ‘51, ‘84, ‘88, ‘89, ‘92, ‘95, ‘17)

• Overall Record 5-4 (.555 Win %)

• The Orange Bowl in 2004 was in Pro Player Stadium but Miami was still playing their games in the Orange Bowl at the time until 2007. Miami beat FSU 16-14. So this doesn’t count as a Home-field Bowl game.

• In 1995 the Bowl Coalition National Championship game was the Orange Bowl. Miami lost to Nebraska 24-17 in this game. Also, you probably would have guessed Miami to start with anyway or maybe the next one.

Hawaii Bowl - Hawaii

• 9 Times (‘02, ‘03, ‘04, ‘06, ‘08, ‘10, ‘16, ‘18, ‘19)

• Overall Record 5-4 (.555 Win %)

• If we would have counted the other iterations of the Hawaii Bowl, then add in the Oahu and Aloha Bowls, this number would likely be much higher.

Sun Bowl - UTEP

• 8 Times (‘37, ‘49, ‘50, ‘54, ‘55, ‘57, ‘65, ‘67)

• Overall 5-3 (.625 Win %)

• Technically the El Paso All Stars of High Schools in the area played in the original game in 1935 and it was their home-field too. They won 28-21 over another high school team in the 1935 game.

Fiesta Bowl - Arizona State

• 6 Times (‘71, ‘72, ‘73, ‘75, ‘77, ‘83)

• Overall 5-1 (.833 Win%)

• Sun Devil Stadium stopped hosting the Fiesta Bowl in 2006 but the Sun Devils haven’t been back to the Fiesta Bowl since 1983 anyway.

• The Sun Devils have the best winning percentage for teams who have played in at least 3 home-field bowl games.

Rose Bowl - UCLA

• 5 Times (‘83, ‘84, ‘86, ‘94, ‘99) - also Duke - 1 Time (‘42) - 0-1 for Duke.

• Overall 3-2 (.600 Win%)

• UCLA has been to the Rose Bowl a whopping 12 times (5-7 Overall) but only 5 times since the Rose Bowl was their home-field and they haven’t been back since 1999.

Potato Bowl - Boise State

• 4 Times (‘99, ‘00, ‘02, ‘05)

• Overall 3-1 (.750 Win %)

• Oddly enough Boise State never played under the current sponsor of the Idaho Potato Commission, they only played in the Humanitarian Bowl and MicronPC.com Bowl versions of the game.

New Mexico Bowl - New Mexico

• 4 Times (‘06, ‘07, ‘15, ‘16)

• Overall 2-2 (.500 Win %)

• New Mexico has alternated wins and losses in each appearance. Which is strange because they played in this bowl two consecutive years on two separate occasions. Lost in 2006, won in 2007. Lost in 2015, won in 2016.

Cotton Bowl - SMU

• 3 Times (‘48, ‘49, December ‘66)

• Overall 2-1 (.666 Win %)

• SMU’s last Cotton Bowl appearance was in 1983 but they were playing their home games in Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys at the time.

Sugar Bowl - Tulane

• 2 Times (‘35, ‘40)

• Overall 1-1. (.500 Win %)

• The last Sugar Bowl in Tulane stadium was in 1974 but Tulane never made it back to the Sugar Bowl during their time using the Louisiana Superdome as their home-field either.

Liberty Bowl - Memphis

• 2 Times (‘17 and ‘23)

• Overall 1-1 (.500 Win%)

• Oddly enough both home-field Liberty Bowls for Memphis were played against Iowa State. Iowa State won the meeting in 2017 by the score of 21-20.

Guaranteed Rate Bowl - Arizona

• 2 Times (‘89 and ‘97)

• Overall 2-0 (1.000 Win %)

• This bowl originated as the Copper Bowl that was played at Arizona Stadium until 1999. Arizona State played in this game in 2005 the year before it found a home in Sun Devil Stadium from 2006-2015.

Las Vegas Bowl - UNLV

• 2 Times (‘94 and ‘00)

• Overall 2-0 (1.000 Win %)

• UNLV defeated Houston Nutt’s Arkansas 31-14 in 2000. We had to mention that fact.

Boca Raton Bowl - FAU

• 2 Times (‘17 and ’19)

• Overall 2-0 (1.000 Win %)

• FAU scored 50 and 52 points in their home-field Bowl game appearances.

Military Bowl - Navy

• 2 Times (‘15 and ‘17)

• Overall 2-0 (1.000 Win %)

• Navy beat two ACC teams in their two home-field bowls, Pitt and Virginia.

Citrus Bowl - Florida

• 1 Time - (‘73)

• Overall 0-1 (.000 Win%)

• This was the first Division I version of what would become the Citrus Bowl but it was called the Tangerine Bowl. Also, this was the only time that Citrus Bowl was not played in Orlando.

Holiday Bowl - San Diego State

• 1 Time (‘86)

• Overall 0-1 (.000 Win%)

• San Diego State playing in Jack Murphy Stadium lost a thrilling bowl game 39-38 to a Hayden Fry coached Iowa.

68 Ventures Bowl - South Alabama

• 1 Time (‘23)

• Overall 1-0 (1.000 Win %)

• They just blew out Eastern Michigan 59-10 this past bowl season.

New Orleans Bowl - Tulane

• 1 Time (‘13)

• Overall 0-1 (.000 Win%)

• Tulane lost to the Ragin’ Cajuns 24-21 but the Cajuns had to vacate this win. This was Tulane’s last season playing in the Superdome before Yulman Stadium opened in 2014.

Armed Forces Bowl - TCU

• 1 Time (‘03)

• Overall 0-1 (.000 Win%)

• TCU and Boise State played a thriller with the Broncos winning 34-31 in the Inaugural Armed Forces Bowl but it was known at the Fort Worth Bowl then.

Gasparilla Bowl - South Florida

• 1 Time (‘18)

• Overall 0-1 (.000 Win%)

• Marshall defeated South Florida 38-20 and this capped off a 6 game losing streak for the Bulls after they started 7-0 but finished 7-6.

None of the remaining Bowl Games that are still active had any Home-Field Bowl Games.

• Cure Bowl - None - UCF played in this in 2016 but it was at Camping World Stadium

• Music City Bowl - None - Vandy played in this twice but it was not their home stadium

• Independence Bowl - None - Louisiana Tech has played in this Bowl five times and they list it as an alternate home field but they have never played an entire season as this as their home stadium so I didn’t credit it.

• Peach Bowl - None 

• Gator Bowl - None

• Reliaquest Bowl - None

• Pop Tarts Bowl - None

• Alamo Bowl - None

• Duke’s Mayo Bowl - None

• Texas Bowl - None

• Birmingham Bowl - None 

• First Responder - None

• Myrtle Beach Bowl - None

• Fenway Bowl - None

• LA Bowl - None - If you wanted to count this for UCLA, we likely could have since the stadium was closer to their normal home-field stadium of the Rose Bowl. But that is a special exception anyway.

So does it seem to give any sort of advantage to have a home-field bowl game?

41 wins - 25 losses in for the “Home” Team in 66 Home-field Bowl Games for a .621 Win percentage.

It seems like its it a slight advantage overall for most teams but in a Bowl game you are playing a team who is at least .500 nearly all of the time, so I really don’t know what to make of this stat.

Maybe eventually we will get some more home-field bowl games and get further information. Thanks for reading!