The Heritage Bowl was a
NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision
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 ...
(FCS)
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 by the
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
. The bowl pitted a team from the
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose full members are historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southeastern and the Mid-Atlantic United States. It participates in the National C ...
(MEAC) against a team from the
Southwestern Athletic Conference
The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) is a collegiate athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which is made up of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southern United States. It participates in t ...
(SWAC). It was hoped that it would become a true
national championship game for
historically black colleges and universities
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. ...
(HBCUs).
It was a successor to the
Pelican Bowl
The Pelican Bowl is a defunct, Louisiana-based NCAA Division II bowl game that was intended to match the overall champions or top-seeded co-champions from the then-new Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the long-established Southwestern A ...
, which matched MEAC and SWAC teams during the 1970s, and a predecessor to the
Celebration Bowl
The Celebration Bowl is a postseason college football bowl game, first played in the 2015 season, contested between the champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC)—the two prominent c ...
of the 2010s.
Background
The bowl's legitimacy as an HBCU championship game was called into question immediately, starting with its very first contest, when its committee awarded its automatic bid to the MEAC's second-seeded co-champion,
North Carolina A&T
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (also known as North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina A&T, N.C. A&T, or simply A&T) is a public, historically black land-grant research university in Greensboro, North Caro ...
, over its top seed,
Delaware State
Delaware State University (DSU or Del State) is a public historically black land-grant research university in Dover, Delaware. DSU also has two satellite campuses: one in Wilmington and one in Georgetown. The university encompasses four col ...
(Delaware State had defeated the Aggies head-to-head, on the road even, but their conference victory over
Bethune–Cookman was viewed differently as it had been determined by a
forfeit
Forfeit or forfeiture may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Forfeit'', a 2007 thriller film starring Billy Burke
* "Forfeit", a song by Chevelle from ''Wonder What's Next''
* ''Forfeit/Fortune'', a 2008 album by Crooked Fingers
L ...
). That first game brought other challenges as well, as it also drew only 7,728 spectators and lost future support from its title sponsor,
Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Ant ...
, in the process. "That left the organizers $1 million in debt and blaming each other for the bowl's problems. President James McKinley, ousted in January, sued Alamo and his board of directors to win back his now largely meaningless post."
The bowl also still owed its participating schools money months after the game. Heritage Bowl II did not fair all that much better, as it was played without a title sponsor and featured neither the
MEAC champion nor the
SWAC champion. Even after moving to a January date and having
Florida A&M
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the U ...
serve as a de facto home team, the game still could only attract 11,273 fans—albeit an improvement over the previous game. In subsequent years half of the conferences' top seeds declined the automatic bowl bid in order to participate in the
NCAA Division I–AA playoffs instead. This became an especially common issue for the MEAC, often leaving its runner-up—or even its third seed, for the final three Heritage Bowls—to represent the conference.
The bowl peaked in the mid-1990s as it found a new stable home (
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
's
Georgia Dome
The Georgia Dome was a domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of the Georgia World Congress Center ...
) and a new title sponsor (
Jim Walter Homes),
all while attendance sharply increased—and the December 30, 1994 game finally got to pair the top-seeded champions from both leagues. This renaissance was short-lived, however, with attendance leveling off as the game evolved into an annual contest between
Southern
Southern may refer to:
Businesses
* China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China
* Southern Airways, defunct US airline
* Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US
* Southern Airways Express, M ...
and the MEAC's third seed. Because of the MEAC's unwillingness to guarantee that its champion would participate, the television contract was ended and eventually the game was too, even though its later attendance figures surpassed some higher-division bowl games. Perhaps not coincidentally, the SWAC—which usually did send its champion, because several of its schools played
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...
weekend
regular season
In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...
games that conflicted with the first round of the playoffs—won most of the Heritage Bowls that were held.
The bowl was played in
Miami Gardens, Florida
Miami Gardens is a city in north-central Miami-Dade County, Florida. It is located north of Downtown Miami with city boundaries that stretch from I-95 and Northeast 2nd Avenue to its east to Northwest 47th and Northwest 57th Avenues to its west ...
in 1991,
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In ...
in 1993, and Atlanta from 1994–99.
Legacy
The game after the 1994 season was the only one to feature both conferences' top seeds; the games after the 1992 and 1996 seasons did not include either league's top seed.
Unlike the Pelican Bowl, which continued to insist that it was an HBCU championship game even after one of the conferences' top seeds had declined their automatic bid, the Heritage Bowl's committee essentially had to concede that its second game could not be promoted as an HBCU championship—since not only one but ''both'' conferences' champions had backed out. This largely set the tone for the remainder of the bowl's existence, save for the 1994 game. Indeed, playing in the bowl may have actually been viewed as more of a hindrance to earning an HBCU title than by avoiding the game; five teams that declined their Heritage Bowl bids were eventually able to secure black national titles from various selectors any way, without having to determine it head-to-head in the bowl game.
Several Heritage Bowls were in position to have had a major impact on the black national championship selection process. Had
Howard
Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...
not declined its automatic bid to play Southern after the 1993 campaign, for example, it would have likely prevented the HBCU national title from being split between the two schools by selectors. Likewise, in 1996 SWAC top seed
Jackson State
Jackson State University (Jackson State or JSU) is a public historically black research university in Jackson, Mississippi. It is one of the largest HBCUs in the United States and the fourth largest university in Mississippi in terms of studen ...
opted to forgo the bowl for the playoffs, missing an opportunity to avoid a split black national title with Howard by settling it on the field. In both 1997 and 1998 the MEAC's top seed,
Hampton
Hampton may refer to:
Places Australia
*Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia
*Hampton, New South Wales
*Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region
*Hampton, Victoria
Canada
*Hampton, New Brunswick
*Hamp ...
, refused its invitations to play Southern, likely leading to split titles both years. After Hampton declined the 1998 bid, the MEAC's second seed (Florida A&M) did as well; both FAMU and Southern subsequently ended up being declared HBCU champions by various selectors.
In 2010 a replacement for the Heritage Bowl, the "Legacy Bowl"—not to be confused with a later
exhibition game of the same name—was proposed for the 2011 season, but MEAC officials voted it down.
In 2015 the two conferences finally reached an agreement to compete in the new
Celebration Bowl
The Celebration Bowl is a postseason college football bowl game, first played in the 2015 season, contested between the champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC)—the two prominent c ...
.
Game results
Note: an asterisk denotes when the conference's outright champion or top-seeded co-champion accepted its automatic bid to the bowl (in 1991 the bowl's committee issued the MEAC's bid to its second-seeded co-champion
)
References
{{Reflist
Defunct college football bowls
Southwestern Athletic Conference football
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference football
Recurring sporting events established in 1991
Recurring sporting events disestablished in 1999
American football in Atlanta
American football in Miami
1991 establishments in Florida
Black college football classics