Country United States First awarded 2002–03 Most awards Mountain West (4) | Presented by ESPN Currently held by ACC | |
Awarded for Best college football bowl record among Division I Football Bowl Subdivision conferences. | ||
The Bowl Challenge Cup was created by ESPN in 2002 as a competition among the conferences in the NCAA's Division I-A, now called the Football Bowl Subdivision, to see which one was the best in the college football bowl games that take place. The competition has been used as a gauge to compare which conference has done the best in the post-season bowl matchups. ESPN also occasionally refers to it as the "Bowl Cup Challenge" when promoting it.
Contents
Originally sponsored by Cooper Tire, ESPN went several years without a sponsor for the Bowl Challenge Cup. However, the network has continued to post the standings during college bowl games on ESPN and the Cup makes regular appearances during the bowl season. During the 2015–16 bowl games and 2016–17 bowl games, Progressive was the sponsor for the trophy.
Conferences competing
The ten Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) conferences that compete in the Bowl Challenge Cup are:
Qualifications
In order to qualify to win the trophy, a conference has to have the highest winning percentage with a minimum of three teams from that conference.