The Seattle Bowl was a college football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 bowl game played in 2001 and 2002 between teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference

Atlantic Coast Conference

The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities...

 and the Pacific-10 Conference in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

. This bowl game was a continuation of the Oahu Bowl

Oahu Bowl

The Oahu Bowl is a now defunct National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision bowl game played in Honolulu, Hawaii at Aloha Stadium. Played on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, the Oahu Bowl was sponsored by Jeep motor company...

 which had moved to Seattle. The 2001 game was played at Safeco Field

Safeco Field

Safeco Field is a retractable roof baseball stadium located in Seattle, Washington. The stadium, owned and operated by the Washington-King County Stadium Authority, is the home stadium of the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball and has a seating capacity of 47,878 for baseball...

 and the 2002 game was played at Seahawks Stadium. The game was discontinued in 2003 when financing could not be secured.

Bowl History

Although December in Seattle is traditionally home to an average temperature of 41 degrees and 2/3 of the days have rain

Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...

, Oahu Bowl officials sought to move their game to the west coast mainland after the 2000 season. Hawai'i had already hosted the long standing Aloha Bowl

Aloha Bowl

The Aloha Bowl was a National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision college football bowl game played in Honolulu, Hawaii at Aloha Stadium. With the exception of the 1983-86 playings, the Aloha Bowl was traditionally played on Christmas morning in Honolulu. For most of its...

 (which also lost its certification after the 2000 season after an aborted attempt to move the bowl to San Francisco) and bowl officials felt that a game with a west coast tie-in could work in the football-friendly city of Seattle. The committee and city also had hoped that the game would add tourist dollars to what is normally the slowest tourism week of the year. The game would match the fifth place teams from the ACC and Pac-10 at Safeco Field.

In 2001 the game was able to secure sponsorship from Jeep

Jeep

Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...

 and matched the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets of the ACC against the then 11th ranked nationally Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 Cardinal. The Yellow Jackets pulled off the upset win by a score of 24–14 in front of 30,144 fans.

The 2002 game would almost not happen at all. The Seattle Bowl beat an NCAA mandated deadline for a letter of credit for $1.5 million dollars by less than one hour to insure a second game. The game was moved to its intended home at Seahawks Stadium and would match Oregon

University of Oregon

-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...

 against Wake Forest

Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. The university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, is...

. Wake Forst would win the game by a score of 38–17. The attendance of the game would improve to 38,241, helped by the nearby Oregon Ducks bringing a large contingent of fans. However, the game had increased its payout to $1,000,000 per team and was unable to attract a title sponsor resulting in heavy losses.

After the 2002 game's financial losses it was clear that a 2003 game would be a longshot. Bowl president Terry Daw relinquished ownership of the game and the bowl would miss two deadlines imposed by the NCAA to provide a $1.5 million dollar letter of credit. Further in April, 2003 it was reported that the bowl game was being sued by the Mountain West Conference

Mountain West Conference

The Mountain West Conference , popularly known as the Mountain West, is the youngest of the college athletic conferences affiliated with the NCAA’s Division I FBS . The MWC officially began operations in July 1999...

 and the company who purchased the bowl game from Daw, known as Pro Sports & Entertainment Inc., was discovered to not have had a valid business since 2001. The Mountain West had originally contracted to send its Number 4 team to the bowl in 2002 and pledged $250,000 to the bowl to secure its spot. The Conference did not produce a 4th bowl eligible team for the season and as such Oregon was picked as a replacement. The lawsuit claims that the $250,000 was never returned to the Conference as per the terms of the contract.

After Pro Sports & Entertainment was unable to secure a primary sponsor for the game as they believed they could the Bowl was not renewed by the NCAA for the 2003 bowl season.

Game results

Date Played	Winning Team		Losing Team		Location	Notes
December 27, 2001	Georgia Tech 2001 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team The 2001 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team represented the Georgia Institute of Technology in the college football season of 2001-2002. The team's coach was George O'Leary, who would leave the school before the bowl game to accept the head coaching job at the University of Notre Dame...	24		14	Seattle, Washington Seattle, Washington Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...	notes 2001 Seattle Bowl The 2001 Jeep Seattle Bowl was the first edition to be named as such of the college football bowl game , and was to be played at Qwest Field in Seattle, Washington. The game pitted the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets from the ACC and the from the Pac-10...
December 30, 2002	Wake Forest	38	Oregon 2002 Oregon Ducks football team -Recruiting:-Schedule:...	17	Seattle, Washington Seattle, Washington Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...	notes 2002 Seattle Bowl The 2002 Seattle Bowl was the second and final edition of the college football bowl game , and was played at Qwest Field in Seattle, Washington. The game pitted the University of Oregon Ducks from the Pac-10 and the Wake Forest University Demon Deacons from the ACC...