Salt Lake won't host bowl game

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 1, 2008 | by Dirk Facer Deseret News

Scratch the Rocky Mountain Bowl off the list -- at least for now.

On Wednesday, an NCAA subcommittee denied certification for the proposed game, which would pit teams from the Mountain West and Western Athletic conferences at Rice-Eccles Stadium in December.

David Viveiros, the president of Rocky Mountain Bowl LLC, expressed disappointment with the decision but was encouraged that the subcommittee asked his group to re-apply for certification next year.

And they intend to do so.

In the meantime, Mountain West Conference deputy commissioner Bret Gilliland said the league will continue searching for favorable situations.

"Obviously, we were hoping we'd have an opportunity there to lock in a fifth bowl for a Mountain West team," he said. "But unfortunately, they didn't get licensed, so we'll continue to try to flush out what our options will be coming into '08 and what they might be for beyond that."

Gilliland added that the conference meetings are being held this weekend in Phoenix and it'll be a good opportunity to sit down with athletic directors and football coaches to discuss what transpired in this situation. Future options and a game plan to move forward will also be part of the talks.

While declining the Rocky Mountain Bowl bid, the NCAA Licensing Committee did approve the two other proposals it received this year - - from groups in Washington, D.C., and St. Petersburg, Fla. -- increasing the total number of college football bowl games to 34.

Nationals Park in Washington is home for the new "Congressional Bowl." The game will feature Navy and a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Also garnering approval is the ESPN-owned St. Petersburg Bowl at Tropicana Field. The Big East and Conference USA will supply teams for that game.

The MWC currently has four guaranteed bowl berths -- Las Vegas, Armed Forces (Fort Worth), Poinsettia (San Diego) and New Mexico (Albuquerque). The league also has a rotating contingency agreement with the Texas Bowl in Houston.

"I think what's fair to say is we're interested in any opportunity to get us a guaranteed fifth bowl," said Gilliland. "The last three years we've had five teams bowl eligible. So it looks like that is going to be a trend for us. ... Obviously, we're always going to work whatever available angles there are towards the end of the season to find somebody. But to have a guaranteed spot would be the ideal. So we're going to be interested in any opportunity -- no matter what it is -- at least to take a look at and see if it works for us."

Last season, there were seven bowl-eligible teams left out of the 32 games that were played.

The Associated Press reported that all of those games had their licenses renewed at the subcommittee committee in Weston, Fla. The group also announced that approximately 1.6 million fans attended last season's bowl games and that about $222 million in revenue was distributed to participating teams and conferences.

E-mail: dirk@desnews.com