Valero Alamo Bowl

The Valero Alamo Bowl is one of the youngest bowls in the country. The Alamo Bowl had its inaugural game in 1993, in the Alamodome, when the Cal Golden Bears went up against the Iowa Hawkeyes. The game was a total blowout as the Golden Bears mauled the Hawkeyes by a score of 37-3. Since then the game has gotten bigger and bigger each year.

The highest rated game of the Alamo Bowl's short legacy came in its third year when the game featured two Top 25 ranked teams in the Texas A & M Aggies, who were #19, and the Michigan Wolverines, who were ranked #14 coming into the game. It was a game that was dominated by field goals. Aggie kicker Kyle Bryant kicked an Alamo Bowl record five field goals as the Aggies went on to pull off the upset of the mighty Michigan Wolverines 22-20.

The first time the Alamo Bowl hosted a team that was ranked in the Top 10 came during the 1998 season. It was the first year that the Bowl Championship Series came into play and the Kansas State Wildcats lost to Texas A&M in the Big XII Championship. The BCS didn’t choose the previously undefeated Wildcats into any of their BCS bowls and the Wildcats went into San Antonio with complaints instead of a chip on their shoulder. They matched up with the Boilermakers of Purdue and it is hands down the best game to ever be played at the Alamo Bowl. The Wildcats found themselves down 30-20 with only 6:22 left in the game and were sparked by the Heisman Trophy runner-up Michael Bishop and scored two straight touchdowns, the last coming with only 1:54 left in the game. That's when the Boilermakers, led by San Diego Chargers quarterback Drew Brees, pushed their way down the field and scored while the clock ticked away. In addition to being the best Alamo Bowl game ever it was also the best bowl game that year.

2008’s Valero Alamo Bowl had some atypical storylines hovering around them. The Journalism Bowl, as some scribes in the media named it, matched the 9-4 Missouri Tigers against the 9-3 Northwestern Wildcats in a high scoring shootout (53 points between them). The outcome was a $2,250,000 to the victor, the Missouri Wildcats.

The 2010 Valero Alamo Bowl became the most watched game in ESPN history as Texas Tech Red Raiders upset the Michigan State Wolverines 41-31.  This season will mark the first time that two bowl games will be played in the same year as the 18th Annual Alamo Bowl will be played in December rather than January.