The Liberty Bowl

Cinci and Vandy on New Year's Eve

The AutoZone Liberty Bowl comes down to a Cincinnati team that has established itself as one of the best in the Big East versus a Vanderbilt team that plays in the best conference in all of college football. The Bearcats have put their program back on the map by winning the Big East three out of the last four years. The Commodores are going to a bowl game for only the fifth time in school history. This is an amazing feat considering the league that they play in. The SEC is universally seen as the toughest conference in all of college football. Squaring up against the likes of Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida and LSU has made Vanderbilt a formidable foe. Cincinnati head coach Butch Jones is a little concerned that some of his younger players may see Vandy's 6-6 record and take them lightly.

On the UC side of the ball, the season took a rude turn when staring quarterback Zach Collaros broke his ankle in the first quarter against West Virginia. At that point the Bearcats were a top the Big East with a 7-1 record but have gone 2-2 since. Collaros was having a tremendous season but sophomore Munchie Legaux has stepped up and helped maintain the Bearcat offense. Collaros is expected back for the bowl game and that will help take the load off of Isaiah Pead who has rushed for over 1,000 yards to become the first Bearcat to do that in back to back seasons in the past 25 years. The Cincinnati defense is led by linebacker JK Schaffer who has over 100 tackles this season.

Vanderbilt comes in with a deceptive 6-6 record. They have played some really good teams tough and beaten the teams that they should have. Not backing down from anyone in or out of the SEC was what head coach James Franklin envisioned when he took over a struggling Vanderbilt football program. The Vandy defense has been the most consistent part of the team as the offense has struggled at times to catch up. The Commodores have intercepted 17 passes this year and that ties them for second in the SEC. During week 7, Franklin decided to put Jordan Rodgers in at quarterback. That decision was probably the turning point of the season as Rodgers went on to put together a very solid 2011 campaign. Having Zac Stacy at running back has helped take the load off of Rodgers. Stacy has rushed for over 1,100 yards and has provided a nice compliment to Rodgers' big arm.

When the AutoZone Liberty Bowl kicks off on Christmas Eve it will provide a good glimpse at how the top of the Big East competes with a middle-of-the-pack SEC team. Both teams rely on opportunistic defenses to set up great field position for the offense. Cincinnati is more than capable of hitting the big strike on offense while Vandy prefers to grind it out on the ground and use the passing game to set up Stacy. This should be a very balanced game with the outcome likely to hinge on which offense takes better care of the football.

Overview of the Liberty Bowl

The AutoZone Liberty Bowl is an annual college football game currently played at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee. The game began to be sponsored in 1997 by AXA Financial. AutoZone took over the role in 2004 and remains it's sponsor to this day. The bowl game was founded in 1959 by A.F. Dudley (aka Bud Dudley), a former athletic director for Villanova University (1953-1957).

The only person in history to both start and be the sole owner of a bowl game, Bud chose to have the game held in his hometown of Philadelphia at John F. Kennedy Stadium (1959-1963).

Bud was convinced to move the game to Atlantic City's Convention Hall for 1964 for $25,000. It became the 1st bowl game to be played indoors. Turf was unavailable at the time and the hall had to be padded with a grass and burlap surface. To keep the grass from dying, artificial lighting was installed and left on all 24/7.

Dudley then planned to move the bowl every year or so to various cities that didn't have a bowl, but changed his mind after seeing the attendance generated in Memphis (38,607 versus 6,059 and 8,309 the 2 years prior), where the game has remained ever since. It was originally played in December, but has been moved to January since 2009. Dudley retired as executive director of the game in 1994 and passed away in 2008 at the age of 88.

Starting from the latter 1980s, the Liberty Bowl offered an automatic invite to the winner of the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy (unless that team was not eligible to play in a bowl game). This was changed to the Conference USA (officially abbreviated to C-USA in 2005) champion since 1996. A second automatic bid was extended to the Mountain West Conference (MWC) from 1999-2005. The MWC declined both bids in 2004 and 2005; beginning 2006, a team from the SEC was chosen. This has been extended for 2011 to include the Big East as there are no longer enough bowl game eligible SEC teams.

The week leading up to game is known as Bowl Week Festival and features events like the Golf Classic (a charity game that donates its proceeds to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital), a high school all-star game, a welcome party for the invited football teams, an awards ceremony for Conference USA, a professional rodeo show, a FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) run prayer breakfast, the Bash on Beale (a pep rally staged on Beale Street), the Liberty Bowl Parade (also held on Beale St.), the President's Gala (a black tie event), and finally, a pre-game buffet held at the Fairgrounds.

The game itself has featured 4 Heisman Trophy winners: Ernie Davis (1961), Terry Baker (1962), Doug Flutie (1983) and Bo Jackson (1984). Other legends of the game include Lawrence Taylor (1977 North Carolina), Kellen Winslow Sr. (1980 Missouri), Coach Bear Bryant (1959, 1969, 1976, 1982 Alabama), Randy White (1974 Maryland) and Donovan McNabb (1996 Syracuse). Great performances include Bob Anderson (1969 Colorado) who holds the record for most rushing yards (254) and is tied for most touchdowns (3) in a single game, Tony Eason (1982 Illinois) who holds the record for most passing yards (424) and completions (35) in one game and Vincent Marshall (2006 Houston) who holds the record for most receiving yards in a single game. The winner of the game wins the Bell Trophy designed and named after the famous liberty bell in Philadelphia.

You'll have the opportunity to place all types of sports bets on bowl game MVP's, individual players performances and much more as part of our college football odds that will be setup for the entire holiday bowl season. The Liberty Bowl preview, Liberty Bowl odds and all our Liberty Bowl betting options will be released when the matchup is determined at the end of the regular NCAA football season at the end of November, early December. If you like all of our college football bowl previews don't forget to check the NFL odds. We have game previews each week for the NFL whether it's the Raiders vs Chargers, the Steelers vs Bengals, the Cowboys vs Redskins, the Panthers vs Falcons or whatever your favorite matchups are. Along with the preview we have future bets for the NFL and betting trends so you can review which way the public is leaning towards on the betting lines themselves.