The Sickos Committee Defunct Bowl Game Champions

Hello Fellow Sickos!

A few weeks ago, I randomly came across this picture of a smiling football surrounded by vegetables. This was the cover of the souvenir program for the prestigious 1948 Salad Bowl between the University of Nevada and North Texas State College (now North Texas). I tweeted out the picture (The Salad Bowl Tweet), and this led me down an internet rabbit hole trying to find out what happened with the Salad Bowl. It was easy enough to find that it ended in 1955, and the Fiesta Bowl would eventually take its place 16 years later in 1971. This little Salad Bowl internet expedition found me wanting to know more about other bowl games that had existed in the past landscape of college football, but were no longer played or becoming “defunct” for whatever reason.  

Just for clarification, when I say “defunct bowl game,” I’m not talking about the bowl games that started with a different name and then later became something that is still played today. For example, I didn’t consider the Tangerine Bowl a defunct bowl game. It was called the Tangerine Bowl from 1947 - 1982 until the name was changed to the Florida Citrus Bowl from 1983 - 2002, then turned into the Capital One Bowl from 2003 - 2014, and then back to the Citrus Bowl from 2015 till present day.

An example of a defunct bowl game that was actually considered in my tabulations was the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl. Now, you may think this bowl game actually just turned into the Quick Lane Bowl since it was played in the same location. However, the people running the bowl game were affiliated with Little Caesars Pizza and the Quick Lane Bowl people were affiliated with the Detroit Lions - completely separate organizations. So, for my results, the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl is considered defunct, something we absolutely should have seen coming since they ran out of pizza at their own bowl game! Little Caesar's Bowl runs out of pizza

Down this rabbit hole, I started seeing names of bowl games I knew existed (the Freedom Bowl, the Bluebonnet Bowl, the Poinsettia Bowl) but then I found many I had never heard of before (the Pecan Bowl, the Palm Bowl, the Optimist Bowl). I started to wonder what schools won all of these ghost games.

Finally, I had the realization - there is a school that had won the most defunct bowl games in college football history. 

As the Chairman of the Sickos Committee, I just had to know which college football held this weird and distinct honor. (I used a Wikipedia page here so let’s hope it’s completely accurate)

I set some parameters on my exploration. I didn’t really care if they were FCS*** or FBS (or D1-AA or whatever it was called) at the time of the bowl game, I just cared if they were FBS now. I also determined, as a tiebreaker, the team with the most different defunct bowl game wins would get the nod. We would then name our Sickos Committee Defunct Bowl Game Champions. 

(***As a side note, I did a little counting for the FCS teams and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Delaware appears to hold the FCS crown by winning six defunct bowl games and Southern University appears to hold the HBCU crown with six defunct bowl games wins also. (Florida A&M would have had the HBCU title but the Orange Blossom Bowl returned last year.) So congrats to the Blue Hens and Jaguars on winning your respective Sickos Committee Defunct Bowl Game Championships.***) 

In my exploration, there were a lot of repeat champions of certain games. Hawai’i was a three-time winner of the Pineapple Bowl. TCU was a three-time champion of the Poinsettia Bowl.  Texas was a three-time winner of the Bluebonnet Bowl. Marshall was a four-time champion of the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl. Incredibly, Virginia and Virginia Tech both won the defunct Tobacco Bowl six times each! However, none of those schools could match our champion who won six completely different defunct bowl games.

This school set a prodigious path to the Sickos Committee Defunct Bowl Game Championship. They were able to win in six different  bowls and collected a total of 10 wins in defunct bowl games. They won four California Bowls, a Charity Bowl, a Freedom Bowl, a Mercy Bowl, a Pineapple Bowl, and two Silicon Valley Football Classic Bowls. 

Congratulations to the Fresno State University Bulldogs on winning the Sickos Committee Defunct Bowl Game Championship!!!

Here is a list of the Top 11 Defunct Bowl Game Winners below with a list of all the Defunct Bowls they have won below:  

Thank you for reading! 

P.S. If you’re curious if your favorite FBS team has won a Defunct Bowl Game, here is the rest of the current FBS teams who have won a Defunct Bowl game: 

FBS Teams with 4 Defunct Bowl Wins

FBS Teams with 3 Defunct Bowl Wins

FBS Teams with 2 Defunct Bowl Wins

FBS Teams with 1 Defunct Bowl Wins