BYU's Bowling Prospects: Introducing the Deseret Book Bowl

Sun Devils Stadium

While BYU waits to see where it will officially go bowling this year (sounds like the New Mexico Bowl or Armed Forces Bowl are the two most likely destinations), what does the bowl future hold for an independent BYU?

It would seem logical that BYU could forge a relationship with one of the existing bowls. After all, each of the current independents have their own bowl tie-ins.

Navy to the Poinsettia Bowl, Army to the Military Bowl and Notre Dame to both the Champs Sports and Sun Bowls (assuming the Irish don’t make a BCS game, which they rarely do these days).

Given BYU’s history and demonstrated ability to fill stadiums in San Diego and Las Vegas, perhaps something could eventually be worked out with the Holiday or Las Vegas Bowls.

But here’s another idea, what if BYU created its own bowl game?

Sounds crazy you say?

Well, if Hawaii and New Mexico can do it, certainly BYU could.

If a deal can’t be swung with a notable bowl, rather than playing in the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl or the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, the Cougars may be better off building their own bowl event (in the years in which they don’t qualify for a BCS game of course).

Hold it in a warm weather location with a large LDS population like Southern California or Phoenix.

Fans from Utah would have a warm-weather destination (something Las Vegas often is not in December or January) within easy travel distance and the bowl would have a built-in local base to whom to sell tickets, thereby virtually insuring a full house every year.

Get a corporate sponsor like Deseret Book, Emergency Essentials, Mona Vie or Jello to put up a few million dollars in sponsorships and you're in business.

Peel one of the Big Six conferences away from one of their myriad of other bowl tie-ins, and you have something you can build into a winner.

One ideal setting would be to play the game in Sun Devils Stadium in Tempe, AZ, just a stone’s throw from Mesa. Yes, that is also where the Insight Bowl is played, but there are already a few venues that host multiple bowl games each year.

If you’re thinking that it couldn’t happen, your probably one of those people who four months ago said BYU would never go independent.

If you have a better idea for BYU’s bowl future, let’s hear it…