ACC looking at new bowls for '09

ACC commish John Swafford announced today at the ACC meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., this will be the last year the conference will be tied in with the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho.

Swafford said the conference is looking into affiliations with the Congressional Bowl in DC and the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Ala.

The ACC will send its ninth bowl eligible team (if there is one) to the Congressional Bowl in 2008 to face Navy (if they, too, are bowl eligible). The GMAC Bowl is currently affiliated with CUSA and the MAC.

The Humanitarian Bowl has seen an ACC participant six of the last seven years, including Clemson, (2001), Georgia Tech (2003, '07), Virginia (2004), BC (2005) and Miami (2006). The ACC has gone 4-2 in the Humanitarian Bowl.

I never minded being affiliate with the goofy bowl in Boise. Between the smurf turf and the nearby ski resorts, it always seemed like it would be a cool place to go bowling. Then again, I don't mind cold weather. But there is a stigma attached to going to the Humanitarian Bowl. The cold and the blue turf and the fact that Boise isn't exactly a popular destination for a bowl makes the recipient of the Humanitarian Bowl berth the punchline of many jokes.

However, Boise is a much more desirable vacation destination to me than Birmingham or El Paso, where the Big East sends two of its bowl teams. However, those two bowls, the Papajohns.com and Sun, respectively, offer more lucrative tie-ins. The Big East faces the SEC in the Papajohns.com Bowl and the Pac 10 in the Sun Bowl. The Big East also faces the Big 12 in the Texas Bowl, played in Houston.

If the ACC is going to start fixing its tie-ins, I'd rather see more tie-ins against BCS conference teams instead of just switching from the WAC to CUSA with the GMAC move. Why not try to send a team to the International Bowl (Toronto's a great city, even if it is Canada in January) to face Connecticut or South Florida instead of facing Tulsa or Memphis in Mobile?