Broncos To Play East Carolina in Hawai'i Bowl

It's official. Boise State will play East Carolina December 23rd in the Hawai'i Bowl. The Broncos were in line for a Sugar Bowl berth but a loss to #10 Hawai'i dropped Boise State all the way to one of the three WAC bowls.

If you're a Bronco fan, it's getting more difficult to figure out which day you need to get off from work!

For the fifth straight year, Boise State will play in a different bowl game. The Broncos have accepted an invitation to play in the Hawai'i Bowl against East Carolina. In 2003, Boise State defeated TCU in the Fort Worth Bowl. The following year, the Broncos traveled to Memphis for a legendary matchup with Louisville in the Liberty Bowl. In 2005, the team played Boston College in the MPC Bowl. Boise State topped that by beating Oklahoma in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl.

If Boise State had a choice in the three Western Athletic Conference bowls, why the Hawai'i Bowl? It is by far the farthest and costly of any of the bowls being talked about. The word BroncoCountry gets is that the Bronco players themselves wanted to play in Hawai'i rather than play Georgia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

It's a sad commentary on the college football scene that there isn't a bowl between the Sugar Bowl and the Hawai'i Bowl willing to take the defending Fiesta Bowl champion with a 10-2 record (8th best in the nation). How much time was spent negotiating with the other bowls is unknown but it seems like something could have been worked out in trade.

Regardless, it's Boise State vs. East Carolina in the 2007 Hawai'i Bowl December 23rd--Aloha!