Sun Belt Conference
The Sun Belt Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. A non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001, its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. The 12 member institutions of the Sun Belt are distributed across the southern United States; the Sun Belt Conference was founded on August 4, 1976 with the University of New Orleans, the University of South Alabama, Georgia State University, Jacksonville University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the University of South Florida. Over the next ten years the conference would add Western Kentucky University, Old Dominion University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Virginia Commonwealth University. New Orleans was forced out of the league in 1980 due to its small on-campus gymnasium that the Conference did not deem suitable for Conference competition. UNO competed as an independent before joining the newly formed American South Conference in 1987.
After the 1990–91 basketball season, all members of the Sun Belt, except Western Kentucky, South Alabama, Jacksonville, departed for other conferences. The Sun Belt, including incoming member in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock merged with the American South Conference, made up of Arkansas State University, Louisiana Tech University, the University of Southwestern Louisiana, the University of Texas–Pan American, New Orleans, Lamar University, the University of Central Florida. Although the American South was the larger conference, the merged league retained the Sun Belt name. Central Florida left the league following the 1991–92 academic year. Lamar, Texas–Pan American, Jacksonville departed at the end of the 1997–98 academic year. Florida International University joined the Sun Belt in 1998, the University of Denver was added in 1999. Louisiana Tech departed after the 2000–01 academic year; the conference did not sponsor football until 2001, when the league added former Big West Conference members New Mexico State University and the University of North Texas and former Ohio Valley Conference member Middle Tennessee State University as full members and added FBS Independent University of Louisiana at Monroe and Big West member University of Idaho as "football-only" members.
These new members gave the Sun Belt seven football playing members in their first season, as Arkansas State and Louisiana–Lafayette were full members which sponsored football. Another Big West school, Utah State University, was added as a "football-only" member in 2003 departed in 2005 with Idaho and New Mexico State for the Western Athletic Conference. In 2004, Troy University became a "football-only" member until the Trojans joined the conference in all sports in the 2005-06 academic year. In 2005, Florida Atlantic became a "football-only" member until the Owls joined the conference in all sports in the 2006-07 academic year. In 2006, Louisiana–Monroe joined the conference as an all-sports full member when the Warhawks left their former home, the Southland Conference. Longtime Sun Belt member Western Kentucky joined the Sun Belt's football conference in 2009 after its Board of Regents voted to upgrade the school's football program to Division I FBS. On November 11, 2009, New Orleans announced it was investigating a move from Division I to the NCAA's Division III.
In order to maintain athletic scholarships, UNO instead opted for entry into Division II. On April 20, 2011, UNO received transition approval from the NCAA Division II Membership Committee. On April 9, 2012, Georgia State, one of the founding members of the Sun Belt Conference, announced that it would be returning to the conference as a full member in 2013; as part of the move, the football program began a transition from FCS to FBS in the 2012 season. On May 2, 2012, Texas State University announced it would leave the WAC after just one year and join the Sun Belt in July 2013 to begin play for the 2013–14 academic year. At the press conference to announce Texas State's addition, Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson hinted that more changes could be on the way for the conference. On May 25, 2012, the conference announced that the University of Texas at Arlington had accepted an invitation to join the conference and would become a full member by 2013. UT Arlington does not field a football team. On May 4, 2012, FIU and North Texas announced that they would be leaving the Sun Belt for Conference USA on July 1, 2013 as part of a Conference USA expansion effort involving four other schools.
On November 29, 2012, Florida Atlantic and Middle Tennessee State announced that they would leave the Sun Belt for Conference USA. The move for Florida Atlantic and MTSU was scheduled to take place in 2014, the two schools announced on January 28, 2013 that they would leave for Conference USA a year early, departing on July 1, 2013 with FIU and North Texas. Western Kentucky accepted an invitation to join Conference USA on April 1, 2013, departed from the Sun Belt on July 1, 2014; these moves depleted the Sun Belt and made the need to expand their membership more urgent than as the Sun Belt was left with ten full members and only eight members that sponsor football (the minimum number required for a conference to sponsor footba
Liberty Bowl
The Liberty Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in late December or early January since 1959. For its first five years, it was played at Philadelphia Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia before being held at Atlantic City Convention Hall in 1964. Since 1965, the game has been held at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Tennessee; because of the scheduling of the bowl game near the end of the calendar year, no game was played during calendar years 2008 or 2015, while two games were played in calendar years 2010 and 2016. Since 2004, the game has been sponsored by Memphis-based auto parts retailer AutoZone and known as the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. Previous sponsors include AXA Financial. A. F. "Bud" Dudley, a former Villanova athletic director, created the Liberty Bowl in Philadelphia in 1959. The game was played at Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium, it was the only cold-weather bowl game of its time, was plagued by poor attendance. The inaugural game was the most successful of the five held in Philadelphia, as 38,000 fans watched Penn State beat Alabama 7–0 in 1959.
A group of Atlantic City businessmen convinced Dudley to move his game from Philadelphia to Atlantic City's Convention Hall for 1964 and guaranteed Dudley $25,000. It would be the first major bowl game played indoors. AstroTurf was unavailable for the game. Convention Hall was equipped with a 4-inch-thick grass surface with two inches of burlap underneath it on top of concrete. To keep the grass growing, artificial lighting was kept on 24 hours a day; the entire process cost about $16,000. End-zones were only 8 yards long. 6,059 fans saw Utah rout West Virginia. Dudley was paid $25,000 from Atlantic City businessmen, $60,000 from the gate, $95,000 from television revenues, cleared $10,000 net profit. Dudley moved the game to Memphis in 1965, where it has made its home at what became Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium to much larger crowds and has established itself as one of the oldest non-BCS bowls. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Liberty Bowl offered an automatic invitation to the winner of the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, if that team was bowl eligible.
Due to the general lack of power of service academy football during this era, the only academy team actually to appear in the Liberty Bowl as a result of this arrangement was Air Force, which appeared in three consecutive games, 1989–1991. Beginning in 1996, the Liberty Bowl began an affiliation with the newly launched Conference USA, offering its champion an automatic bid. Beginning in 2005, the winner of C-USA was determined by the newly created C-USA championship game; the winner of that game was customarily offered the bowl berth from 2005–2013. In 1996 and 1997, the opponent for the C-USA champion was a team from the Big East. In 1998, the Liberty Bowl replaced the Holiday Bowl in a shared contract with the Cotton Bowl and had second choice between the WAC champion and a team from the SEC. From 1999 to 2005, the opponent for the C-USA champion was the Mountain West champion. There were two exceptions: 2004: Mountain West champion Utah qualified for the BCS. In their place, the Liberty Bowl chose.
2005: Mountain West champion TCU chose to play in the 2005 Houston Bowl. At-large WAC team Fresno State took their place. In 1999, the Mountain West Conference did not have an outright champion, as three teams tied for the conference lead; the conference's bid for the game was given to Colorado State. The bowl's contract from 2006 until 2013 pitted the winner of the C-USA championship game against the eighth pick from the SEC; the American was to provide its fifth-place team as an alternate if the SEC could not provide a team. The SEC was given veto power for the bowl, elected to use it in 2011 to block C-USA champion Southern Miss from playing Vanderbilt. Since 2014, the matchup features a team from the SEC against the #4 pick from the Big 12 Conference; the Liberty Bowl is part of a six-bowl SEC pool arrangement that involves the Belk, Music City, TaxSlayer, Texas bowls. The game is televised nationally on ESPN, is carried nationwide by ESPN Radio, internationally by ESPN International; the 2010 win by UCF was the program's first-ever bowl victory.
The 2011 game matched Coaches' Poll #24 ranked Cincinnati against upstart Vanderbilt, unlike most lower tier bowls, it aired on the broadcast network ABC rather than its cable brethren ESPN. Cincinnati defeated Vanderbilt in a second-half comeback; the 2012 Liberty Bowl featured an unusual rematch of a regular season game between the Iowa State Cyclones and the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. Iowa State defeated Tulsa 38–23 in the season's first weekend, however Tulsa defeated Iowa State 31–17 in the Liberty Bowl. Though the bowl selects a team from the SEC, it invited Iowa State because the SEC did not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all of its contracted bowl games. Rankings are based on the AP Poll prior to the game being played. Source: Source: Updated through the December 2018 edition. Teams with multiple appearances Teams with a single appearanceWon: Baylor, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Purdue, USC Lost
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States of America in which its fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I, with its football teams competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest levels for athletic competition in US-based collegiate sports. The ACC sponsors competition in twenty-five sports with many of its member institutions' athletic programs held in high regard nationally. Current members of the conference are Boston College, Clemson University, Duke University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Florida State University, North Carolina State University, Syracuse University, the University of Louisville, the University of Miami, the University of North Carolina, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Virginia, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Wake Forest University. ACC teams and athletes have claimed dozens of national championships in multiple sports throughout the conference's history.
The ACC's top athletes and teams in any particular sport in a given year are considered to be among the top collegiate competitors in the nation. The conference enjoys extensive media coverage; the ACC was one of the five collegiate power conferences, which had automatic qualifying for their football champion into the Bowl Championship Series. With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the ACC is one of five conferences with a contractual tie-in to a New Year's Six bowl game, the successors to the BCS; the ACC was founded on May 8, 1953 by seven universities located in the South Atlantic States, with the University of Virginia joining in early December 1953 to bring the membership to eight. The loss of South Carolina in 1971 dropped membership to seven, while the addition of Georgia Tech in 1979 for non-football sports and 1983 for football brought it back to eight, Florida State's arrival in 1991 for non-football sports and 1992 for football increased the membership to nine. Since 2000, with the widespread reorganization of the NCAA, seven additional schools have joined, one original member has left to bring it to the current membership of 15 schools.
The additions in recent years extended the conference's footprint into the Midwest. ACC member universities represent a range of well-regarded private and public universities of various enrollment sizes, all of which participate in the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Consortium whose purpose is to "enrich the educational missions the undergraduate student experiences, of member universities"; the ACC has 15 member institutions located within the borders of 10 states. Listed in alphabetical order, these 10 states within the ACC's geographical footprint are Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia; the geographic domain of the conference is predominantly within the Southern and Northeastern United States along the US Atlantic coast and stretches from Florida in the south to New York in the North and from Indiana in the west to Massachusetts farthest east. In two sports and baseball, the ACC is divided into two non-geographic divisions of seven teams each, labeled the "Atlantic" and "Coastal" divisions.
Notre Dame does not participate in ACC football and Syracuse does not participate in ACC baseball, leaving 14 total ACC schools for each of those sports. For all other sports, the ACC operates as a single unified league with no divisions; when Notre Dame joined the ACC, it chose to remain a football independent. However, its football team established a special scheduling arrangement with the ACC to play a rotating selection of five ACC football teams per season. Since July 1, 2014, the 15 members of the ACC are: On July 1, 2014, The University of Maryland departed for The Big Ten Conference as The University of Louisville joined from The American Athletic Conference. In 1971, The University of South Carolina left The ACC to become an independent joining The Metro Conference in 1983 and moving to its current home, The Southeastern Conference, in 1991. Full members Non-football members The ACC was established on June 14, 1953, when seven members of the Southern Conference left to form their own conference.
These seven universities became charter members of the ACC: Clemson, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Wake Forest. They left due to that league's ban on post-season football play. After drafting a set of bylaws for the creation of a new league, the seven withdrew from the Southern Conference at the spring meeting on the morning of May 8, 1953 at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina; the bylaws were ratified on June 14, 1953, the ACC was created, becoming the second conference formed by schools collectively withdrawing from the SoCon, after the Southeastern Conference. On December 4, 1953, officials convened in Greensboro, North Carolina, admitted Virginia, a SoCon charter member, independent since 1937, into the conference. In 1960, the ACC implemented a minimum SAT score for incoming student-athletes of 750, the first conference to do so; this minimum was raised to 800 in 1964, but was struck down by a federal court in 1972. On July 1, 1971, South Carolina left the ACC to become an independent.
The ACC operated with seven members until the addition of Georgia Tech from the Metro Conference, announced on April 3, 1978 and taking effect on July 1, 1979 except in football, in which Tech would remain an independent until joining ACC football in 1983. The total number of member schools reached nine with the addition of Florida State formerl
International Bowl
This article is about the defunct NCAA bowl game, played in Toronto. For the high school bowl game, see IFAF International BowlThe International Bowl was a National Collegiate Athletic Association collegiate American football bowl game played in Toronto from 2007 through 2010. During its run, it was the only post-season bowl game played outside the United States, the first such game since the Bacardi Bowl, played in Cuba on January 1, 1937; each of the four times the game was contested pitted teams from the Big East and Mid-American Conferences, with the Big East winning all four matchups. In 2004, a partnership led by the city of Toronto bid to host a bowl game in Toronto, to help the city recover from its loss of tourism dollars due to the 2003 SARS outbreak; the NCAA sanctioned the new Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego, instead. The bowl signed agreements with two Division I conferences to provide teams: The Big East Conference, a BCS conference, the Mid-American Conference. Both conferences are composed of schools in the American Midwest and Northeast, with the exception of Big East school South Florida.
One Big East member, Cincinnati, is a former member of the MAC. The 2009 International Bowl was notable in that the Buffalo Bulls appeared in the first bowl game in the history of the school; the Bulls turned down their only other bowl invitation, the 1958 Tangerine Bowl, as the black players on the team were not going to be permitted to play. After the bowl could not renew its contract with the BCS member Big East Conference, officials decided to cease the contest, it was hoped that the bowl could be revived on, but the Big East's contract with the new Pinstripe Bowl complicated matters. The MAC's tie in was inherited by the Humanitarian Bowl. In all four editions of the International Bowl, the Big East representative defeated the MAC representative, with only the first game decided by fewer than 18 points; the International Bowl was played at Rogers Centre. It was the first football game of significance to be played in Canada under American football rules since Simon Fraser University's football team left the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics in 2001, joined CIS, where Canadian universities play under Canadian football rules.
The winner of the International Bowl was presented with a trophy similar in design to the International Bowl logo. A Canadian maple leaf formed the back of the trophy, with a small crystal football set offset to the right; the name of the winning team was placed on a plaque attached to the lower part of the trophy. ESPN carried the International Bowl across its family of networks for the entirety of the bowl's history. Since the game was in Canada, the network chose to use its Canadian-born commentators or ones that had some connection to Canadian football. Toronto native John Saunders called the game for its first three playings, while CFL Hall of Famer Doug Flutie was a color commentator three times and Nepean, Ontario native Jesse Palmer was there for two of the games. With the exception of the inaugural playing, a Canadian served as the sideline reporter.
2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl
The 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl was a postseason college football bowl game between the South Carolina Gamecocks of the Southeastern Conference and the Connecticut Huskies of the Big East Conference, on January 2, 2010 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. The game was the final contest of the 2009 NCAA Division I-Football Bowl Subdivision football season for both teams, it ended in a 20–7 victory for Connecticut. South Carolina had 7–5 regular-season, highlighted by wins over then-No. 4 Mississippi and then-No. 15 Clemson. The Gamecocks faced Connecticut; the Huskies were selected to play in the 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl following a tumultuous 7–5 regular season that included five losses by a total of just fifteen points, a double-overtime victory at Notre Dame, the murder of cornerback Jasper Howard. Pregame coverage focused on the tragedy that marked the Huskies' season, as well as on head coaches Steve Spurrier of South Carolina and Randy Edsall of Connecticut. Connecticut scored twice in the first quarter: on a one-handed 37-yard touchdown reception by wide receiver Kashif Moore and on a 33-yard field goal after South Carolina failed to convert a fourth-down play at its 32-yard line.
Running back Andre Dixon scored for UConn on a 10-yard rush early in the fourth quarter. South Carolina scored its sole touchdown after the game had been decided, on a two-yard run by Brian Maddox. Dixon was named player of the game, finished with 126 rushing yards and one touchdown. Connecticut wide receiver Marcus Easley and South Carolina linebacker Eric Norwood were among four players from the teams to be selected in the subsequent 2010 National Football League Draft. In 2010, the PapaJohns.com Bowl selection committee had a contractual arrangement with the Big East and the SEC that allowed the committee to pick one team from each conference. The Big East had had a contractual bowl bid to the game since its inception in 2006; the SEC agreed to send its ninth bowl-eligible team to the bowl starting in 2008, but did not have enough bowl-eligible teams in either 2008 or 2009 to take advantage of the bid. In 2010, the SEC received $900,000 for sending a team to the game, while the Big East received $600,000.
The Big East's contract with the bowl committee stated that the group would make its selection in coordination with the International Bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl after other Big East-affiliated bowl games made their selections. Conference champion Cincinnati was awarded an automatic Bowl Championship Series berth in the 2010 Sugar Bowl; the Gator Bowl had the first pick after the BCS, selected West Virginia. The Meineke Car Care Bowl, which had the next selection, considered both Pittsburgh, which had the better regular-season record, Rutgers, whose fans had a better traveling reputation. Three bowl-eligible Big East teams remained: Connecticut and South Florida; the previous two years, Rutgers had played in the 2008 International Bowl and the 2008 PapaJohns.com Bowl. In the same period, South Florida played in the 2007 PapaJohns.com Bowl and the 2008 St. Petersburg Bowl. Connecticut had played in the 2009 International Bowl the previous year. In general, bowl games and conferences prefer to have different teams play in each game each year.
Because of this, Rutgers went to the 2009 St. Petersburg Bowl, South Florida to the 2010 International Bowl, Connecticut to the 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl. For Connecticut's opponent, the PapaJohns.com Bowl had the right to select a SEC team, but only after all other bowls with contracts with the SEC made their selections. Conference champion Alabama finished No. 1 in the BCS standings and earned a berth to the 2010 BCS National Championship Game. Conference championship game loser Florida took the SEC champion's automatic slot in the 2010 Sugar Bowl, vacant since Alabama was selected to appear in the national championship game; the Capital One Bowl opted for Louisiana State University. The Cotton Bowl and Outback Bowl selected Ole Auburn respectively; the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which had the next pick, selected Tennessee. The next selections were shared by the Liberty Bowl and Music City Bowl, which opted for Arkansas and Kentucky, respectively; the Independence Bowl, with the next-to-last selection, picked Georgia, leaving the PapaJohns.com Bowl with the last available bowl-eligible SEC team, South Carolina.
The game was the first meeting between the two schools and the first PapaJohns.com Bowl appearance for each. The game was the 30th anniversary of South Carolina's last postseason game at Legion Field, in the December 1979 Hall of Fame Bowl, it was the 20th anniversary of head coach Steve Spurrier's last Legion Field bowl game, with Duke in the December 1989 All-American Bowl; the South Carolina Gamecocks went 7–6 in 2008, losing their final three games, including the 2009 Outback Bowl against Iowa, by a combined score of 118–30. Steve Spurrier was named head coach of the Gamecocks in 2005. South Carolina opened its 2009 season with a win against North Carolina State, their next game, against No. 21 Georgia, featured a kickoff returned for a touchdown, an interception returned for a touchdown, a safety, a blocked extra point attempt, 24 penalties. In the end, quarterback Stephen Garcia's pass on 4th-and-4 from the 7-yard line with 22 seconds remaining was batted down by the defense and fell incomplete, preserving a 41–37 win for Georgia.
South Carolina proceeded to beat Florida Atlantic 38–16. In their next contest, South Carolina faced No. 4 Mississippi, came away with a 16–10 upset. Nex
Bowl game
In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivision had avoided using a playoff tournament to determine an annual national champion, instead traditionally determined by a vote of sports writers and other non-players. In place of such a playoff, various cities across the United States developed their own regional festivals featuring post-season college football games. Prior to 2002, bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals and the games were considered to be exhibition games involving a payout to participating teams. Despite attempts to establish a permanent system to determine the FBS national champion on the field, various bowl games continue to be held because of the vested economic interests entrenched in them. Bowl games featured the best teams in college football, with strict bowl eligibility requirements for teams to receive an invitation to a bowl game in a particular year.
The number of bowl games has grown, reaching 20 games by the 1997 season rapidly expanding beyond 30 games by the 2006 season and 40 team-competitive games by the 2015 season. The increase in bowl games has necessitated a significant easing of the NCAA bowl eligibility rules, since reduced to allow teams with non-winning 6–6 records and losing 5–6 and 5–7 seasons to fill some of the many available bowl slots; the term "bowl" originated from the Rose Bowl stadium, site of the first post-season college football games. The Rose Bowl Stadium, in turn, takes its name and bowl-shaped design from the Yale Bowl, the prototype of many football stadiums in the United States; the term has since become synonymous with any major American football event collegiate football with some significant exceptions. Two examples are the Egg Bowl, the name of the annual matchup between the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Ole Miss Rebels, the Iron Bowl, a nickname given to the annual game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers.
In professional football, the names of the National Football League's "Super Bowl" and "Pro Bowl" are references to college football bowl games. The use of the term has crossed over into collegiate Canadian football. A notable example is the annual Banjo Bowl between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. U Sports plays two semi-final "bowl games" before the Vanier Cup national championship game, the Uteck Bowl and the Mitchell Bowl; the matchups are determined on a conference rotation basis, with the Uteck Bowl being played at the easternmost host team, while the Mitchell is at the westernmost host team. The history of the bowl game began with the 1902 Tournament East-West football game, sponsored by the Tournament of Roses Association between Michigan and Stanford, a game which Michigan won 49-0; the Tournament of Roses sponsored an annual contest starting with the 1916 Tournament East-West Football Game. With the 1923 Rose Bowl it began to be played at the newly completed Rose Bowl stadium, thus the contest itself became known as the Rose Bowl game.
The name "bowl" to describe the games thus comes from the Rose Bowl stadium. Other cities saw the promotional value for tourism that the Tournament of Roses parade and Rose Bowl carried and began to develop their own regional festivals which included college football games; the label "bowl" was attached to the festival name though the games were not always played in bowl-shaped stadiums. The historic timing of bowl games, around the new year, is the result of two factors—warm climate and ease of travel; the original bowls began in warm climates such as Southern California, Louisiana and Texas as a way to promote the area for tourism and business. Since commercial air travel was either non-existent or limited, the games were scheduled well after the end of the regular season to allow fans to travel to the game site. While modern travel is more convenient, all but 5 of 41 bowl games are still located in cities below 36° N. Currently, college football bowl games are played from mid-December to early January.
As the number of bowl games has increased, the number of games a team would need to win to be invited to a bowl game has decreased. With a 12-game schedule, a number of teams with only 5 wins have been invited to a bowl game; as of the completion of the 2016 season, the University of Alabama has played in more bowl games than any other school, with 64 appearances. Alabama holds the record for most bowl victories with 37; as of the 2016 season, Florida State has the record of consecutive bowl births at 36 bowl appearances, however, it is not recognized by the NCAA due to the NCAA vacated FSU's 2006 Emerald Bowl victory over UCLA due to an academic issue. Virginia Tech Hokies have the longest active streak of consecutive bowl appearances with 25 recognized by the NCAA; the Rose Bowl was the only major college bowl game in 1930. By 1940, there were five major college bowl games: the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl Classic, the Orange Bowl, the Sun Bowl. By 1950, the number had increased to eight games.
This figure of eight bowl games persisted t
University of Alabama at Birmingham
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is a public research university in Birmingham, Alabama. Developed from an academic extension center established in 1936, the institution became a four-year campus in 1966 and a autonomous institution in 1969. Today, it is one of three institutions in the University of Alabama System and, along with the University of Alabama, an R1 research institution. In the fall of 2018, 21,923students from more than 110 countries were enrolled at UAB pursuing studies in 140 programs of study in 12 academic divisions leading to bachelor's, master's, professional degrees in the social and behavioral sciences, the liberal arts, education and health-related fields such as medicine, optometry and public health; the UAB Health System, one of the largest academic medical centers in the United States, is affiliated with the university. UAB Hospital sponsors residency programs in medical specialties, including internal medicine, surgery and anesthesiology. UAB Hospital is the only Level I trauma center in Alabama.
UAB is the state's largest single employer, with more than 23,000 faculty and staff and over 53,000 jobs at the university and in the health system. An estimated 10 percent of the jobs in the Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area and 1 in 31 jobs in the state of Alabama are directly or indirectly related to UAB; the university's overall annual economic impact was estimated to be $7.15 billion in 2017. In 1936, in response to the rapid growth of the Birmingham metropolitan area and the need for the population to have access to a university education, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa established the Birmingham Extension Center; the center operated in an old house in downtown Birmingham at 2131 6th Avenue North and enrolled 116 students. In 1945, UA's newly established four-year School of Medicine moved from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham and took over management of Jefferson and Hillman hospitals. In 1957 enrollment at the extension center stood at 1,856. By 1959, research grants, training grants, fellowships exceeded $1,000,000, ground was broken for a new Children's Hospital.
By the 1960s, it grew apparent. An engineering building was built close to the medical center in 1962, in November 1966, the Extension Center and the School of Medicine were merged into the University of Alabama in Birmingham, with Dr. Joseph Volker as "Vice President for Birmingham Affairs"–reflecting that it was still treated as an offsite department of the main campus in Tuscaloosa. An Advisory Board for UAB was created in 1967. In 1969, the legislature created the University of Alabama System. UAB became one of three four-year institutions within the new system, which included UA and the University of Alabama in Huntsville in Huntsville. Volker became UAB's first president. In the 1970s, the university began a period of rapid growth. Enrollment at the beginning of the decade stood including 2,724 women. To accommodate the growing student population, UAB acquired land in the Southside. UAB Mini Park was dedicated in 1977; the university created an intercollegiate athletic program, joined the NCAA and began fielding teams beginning with golf in 1970 and men's basketball in 1978.
The university's name was changed to the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1984 exchanging the preposition "In" for "at." By 1990, UAB had awarded its 50,000th degree. In 1992, U. S. News and World Report named UAB as the #1 up-and-coming university in the United States. In 1993, UAB's economic impact on the Birmingham region was estimated at more than $1.5 billion per year. In 1994, UAB became the first Alabama university to achieve "Research University I" status in the Carnegie Foundation classification. UAB is located in the Southside neighborhood of downtown Birmingham. Spanning more than 100 city blocks, the UAB campus blends with the urban character of the Southside; the campus is rectangular in shape with University Boulevard serving as the main axis of the rectangle and Campus Green serving as the center of the campus. The campus can be divided into three sections; the medical center occupies most of the campus east of Campus Green. The medical center is home to health science schools and their teaching facilities, including the UAB Health System.
The medical center overlaps with the larger Birmingham Medical District where, in addition to UABHS, non-UAB affiliated hospitals such as the VA Medical Center Birmingham, Children's Hospital of Alabama and Cooper Green Mercy Hospital are located. The part of campus from Campus Green west and University Boulevard south is the academic center of the campus, as well as the center of student life on campus, it is anchored by Campus Green, developed between 2000 and 2007 as the centerpiece of the move to convert the school from its commuter school feel into a more traditional residential campus. Athletics facilities, including Bartow Arena, are located on the far western side of campus. Since 1969, UAB has undergone extensive construction projects are common across campus. Projects that are in planning completed, or under construction include: Bill L. Harbert Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Collat School of Business School of Nursing UAB Police and Public Safety Headquarters UAB is an autonomous institution within the University of Alabama System, governed by the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama and headed by Chancellor of the University of Alabama.
The board is self-nominating and composed of two ex officio members. The makeup of the board is dictated by the Constitution
