The 1998 Humanitarian Bowl was the second edition of the

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

, held on December 30 at

Bronco Stadium Albertsons Stadium is an outdoor athletic stadium in the western United States, located on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. It is the home field of the Boise State Broncos of the Mountain West Conference. Known as Bronco Sta ...

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...

. Played on the blue turf, it featured the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles and the

Idaho Vandals The Idaho Vandals are the intercollegiate athletic teams representing the University of Idaho, located in Moscow. The Vandals compete at the NCAA Division I level as a member of the Big Sky Conference. The football team was an independent for th ...

, the champions of the

Big West Conference The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacific ...

. Idaho was in its first-ever bowl game and upset Southern Miss after entering as a 16-point

underdog An underdog is a person or group in a competition, usually in sports and creative works, who is largely expected to lose. The party, team, or individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog. In the case where an underdog wins, the ...

. It was Idaho's third season back in

Division I-A The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

; the Vandals had been in

Division I-AA The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

from

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...

through 1995 and were frequently in its postseason. Six weeks earlier, Idaho had defeated

rival A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant o ...

Boise State on this field by one point, scoring a two-point conversion in overtime to gain their only Big West title. Southern Miss was 5–1 in

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

, runner-up to undefeated

Tulane Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

; it was their tenth bowl game.

Game summary

Clear skies and a high temperature of greeted the teams on this Wednesday afternoon; kickoff was at one o'clock

MST The Master of Studies or Master in Studies (M.St. or MSt; ) is a postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of St Andrews, the Australian National University, University of Dublin and the University of Ne ...

and the game was carried by

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. Former

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guard

Jerry Kramer Gerald Louis Kramer (born January 23, 1936) is a former professional American football player, author and sports commentator, best remembered for his 11-year National Football League (NFL) career with the Green Bay Packers as an offensive linema ...

, a Vandal from the 1950s, participated in the coin toss. Idaho fumbled twice early and Southern Miss opened the scoring on a 2-yard touchdown pass from Lee Roberts to Sharrod Gideon. Idaho's Jerome Thomas took the ensuing kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown tying the game at seven. USM's Derrick Nix scored touchdown runs of 8 and 1 yards as Southern Miss took a 21–7 lead with ten minutes remaining in the half. Idaho answered with three touchdown passes from

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freshman

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

John Welsh and the Vandals surged to a 28–21 halftime lead. With three minutes remaining in the third quarter, running back Joel Thomas's 1-yard touchdown run gave Idaho a 14-point lead at . In the fourth quarter, Southern Miss got an 8-yard touchdown pass from Gideon to Roberts, then Derrick Nix's 15-yard touchdown run tied the game at 35 with under three seven minutes remaining. The

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal Kingdom, Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The ...

scored the final points on Welsh's fourth touchdown pass, a 28-yarder to Ryan Prestimonico to win . A sack and fumble recovery sealed the victory. With under two minutes left and a first down on Southern Miss's 19-yard line, Idaho head coach

Chris Tormey Christopher Joseph Tormey (born May 1, 1955) is a former American football coach. Formerly the head coach at and Nevada Wolf Pack football, Nevada and Idaho Vandals football, Idaho, his alma mater, Tormey was an assistant coach for 16 seasons at ...

directed his offense to run out the clock, rather than try to run up the score in a show of sportsmanship. Idaho returned to this bowl in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, another close Vandal win, and it became the

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, previously the Humanitarian Bowl (1997–2003, 2007–2010) and the MPC Computers Bowl (2004–2006), is an NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game that has been played annually since 1997 at Albertson ...

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

References

External links

Game Recap at USAToday.com
{{Southern Miss Golden Eagles bowl game navbox

Humanitarian Bowl The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, previously the Humanitarian Bowl (1997–2003, 2007–2010) and the MPC Computers Bowl (2004–2006), is an NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game that has been played annually since 1997 at Albertson ...

Idaho Vandals football bowl games Southern Miss Golden Eagles football bowl games Famous Idaho Potato Bowl