Mountain West adds Independence Bowl to 2010 lineup

Goodbye Boise. Hello Shreveport!

As has been rumored for a couple weeks now the Independence Bowl will be a Mountain West vs ACC bowl game. The three year agreement starts for the 2010 season. This agreement means that the Humanitarian Bowl will be dropped from the Mountain West lineup following this year.

This should mean nicer weather for the fans in attendance.

Avg Temp in December:

Boise - 37 degrees

Shreveport - 58 degrees

This agreement will mean more $$$ for the Mountain West. The Advocare 100 Independence Bowl paid out $1.1 million last year compared to $750,000 for the Humanitarian Bowl.

The 2010 match up will feature the #3 team from the MWC vs the #7 ACC. Last year the #7 team from the ACC would be either 7-5 Miami or Clemson.

The opportunity to face a BCS opponent is huge and can go a long ways towards improving the Mountain West bid for an automatic BCS birth.

This game will certainly be easy for the TCU fans to attend but again so is their hometown Armed Forces Bowl. The key will be to see if the Front Range or Utah based fan is willing to travel east of the Mississippi.

The Mountain West lost the San Francisco based Emerald Bowl due to poor attendance by CSU/Utah/Air Force/New Mexico.