[WAC]

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WAC, GMAC Bowl
agree to 2-year deal

The league can now have
more teams in postseason games

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By Dave Reardon
dreardon@starbulletin.com

BOISE, Idaho >> Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson announced a two-year agreement today that ties the conference in with the GMAC Bowl.

The GMAC Bowl selection committee can now pick either a Mid-American Conference or a WAC team to play a school from Conference USA in the Mobile, Ala. game.

Last year the game was locked into a MAC-Conference USA matchup.

Coupled with the addition of the ConAgra Hawaii Bowl, the WAC hopes to avoid last year's situation when 9-3 Hawaii, 8-4 Boise State and 8-4 Rice were left out of the postseason because the WAC had only two bowl tie-ins, with the Silicon Valley Bowl and the Humanitarian Bowl.

Benson also said that agreements are close in securing the sixth choice from the Pac-10 for the Silicon Valley Bowl and the eighth or ninth choice from the Big 12 for the Humanitarian Bowl.

If those conferences don't have enough bowl-eligible teams, a team from the MAC could substitute as part of the agreement with the WAC.

WAC champion Louisiana Tech (Humanitarian) and Fresno State (Silicon Valley) were the only conference teams to play in bowls last year.

"This should help us create bowl arrangements that are geographically relevant to the WAC," Benson said. "With what happened last year having five eligible teams and only two going we knew we had to improve our bowl opportunities."

Such an arrangement in place last year might have allowed Louisiana Tech to possibly play in the GMAC Bowl, opening up the Humanitarian Bowl for "home team" Boise State.

"Four bowl opportunities for the WAC means we're starting to get on par with other conferences," Louisiana Tech coach Jack Bicknell said. "The more bowl opportunities you have, the more you can recruit. It shows the conference is moving forward."

Rice coach Ken Hatfield agreed.

"That's the way it should be. There were a lot of teams that could have represented the league well last year," Hatfield said.

UH is guaranteed a Hawaii Bowl berth if it wins at least seven games.

"We are excited about it. We found out what it's like winning nine and not having (a bowl game)," Warriors coach June Jones said. "It's great for the conference because it can free up another team to go to one of the other bowls."