Conference USA puts six teams in football bowl games

[Harry]

Conference USA, Old Dominion's future football home, fared well in the quest for bowl bids this season.

Six Conference USA teams are going to bowl games, including league champion Rice, which faces Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis on Dec. 31, and C-USA runner-up Marshall, which meets Maryland in the Military Bowl in Annapolis, Md. on Dec. 27.

Only one bowl-eligible team in Conference USA – Florida Atlantic, which won its last four games to finish 6-6 – did not go to a bowl.

Of the five so-called "mid major" Football Bowl Subdivision leagues, only the Mountain West also put six teams in postseason bowl games. The American Athletic Conference and Mid-American Conference each had five, while the Sun Belt fared poorly -- the league had seven eligible teams, but only sent two, Louisiana-Lafayette and Arkansas State.

The Sun Belt was so desperate to get teams in bowl games that it offered to pay the Independence and Little Caesar’s Pizza bowl games to take conference teams, commissioner Karl Benson said.

“The Sun Belt Conference Presidents and Chancellors authorized me two weeks ago to use Sun Belt funds at my discretion to entice both bowls to take a Sun Belt team,” Benson said in a statement released by the conference. “As a result, the Sun Belt made very significant financial offers to both bowls that clearly exceeded anything the Sun Belt has done in previous years."

Read more: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/12/conference-usa-puts-six-teams-football-bowl-games