The ACC and Sun Belt’s Intertwined Bowl History

The ACC and Sun Belt will cross paths in a bowl for just the second time ever and will do so outside the contiguous United States. Both conferences announced the San Juan Bowl yesterday. The game will take place on December 16th at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, the one-time home of the Montreal Expos.

Most will think the two conferences’ bowl history together consists of the 2023 Birmingham Bowl when Duke defeated Sun Belt champion Troy 17-10 in front of 20,023 fans. However, the two conferences' bowl histories together extend far past the field.

In 2008, the ACC inexplicably stole a bowl bid from the Sun Belt. Before the season, the Sun Belt agreed to backup bowl tie-ins with the Independence Bowl, Birmingham’s PapaJohns.com Bowl, and the St. Petersburg Bowl.

At season’s end, all three bowls did not have 7-5 teams to fill slots. However, none of the bowls selected 6-6 Sun Belt teams. Instead, all three bowls selected 6-6 teams from other conferences including the PapaJohns.com Bowl, which selected 6-6 NC State over 6-6 Arkansas State and Louisiana.

Nevertheless, the ACC gave back to the Sun Belt inadvertently a couple of years later. Before the 2009 season, the ACC agreed to send its ninth bowl-eligible team to Mobile’s GMAC Bowl.

The GMAC Bowl did not host an ACC team that year, with the Sun Belt filling their spot instead. The vacancy led to a partnership between the Sun Belt and now-68 Ventures Bowl that has mostly persisted to this day.

Although the upcoming San Juan Bowl marks just the second bowl meeting between the Sun Belt and ACC, the two conferences have bowl histories that have intertwined in unique ways.