Boardwalk Bowl

File:2014 Boardwalk Hall 01 (cropped).JPG

Atlantic City Convention Hall

File:Largest convention hall and theatre in the world, Atlantic City, N. J. (8405684002).jpg

Convention Hall football field, postcard image

The Boardwalk Bowl was a postseason college football game held indoors at the former Atlantic City Convention Hall (now Boardwalk Hall) in Atlantic City, New Jersey, from 1961 to 1973.<ref name= "indoor">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name= "top5">Template:Cite news</ref>

History

Convention Hall was built in the late 1920s and hosted indoor college football games as early as 1930, but the venue did not have a perennial football event until the Boardwalk Bowl. While earlier games had been played on dirt, the playing surface for the bowls consisted of natural grass sod that was grown outside and then moved indoors for the game. From 1961 through 1967, the bowl matched Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) against the United States Merchant Marine Academy in what was known as the "Little Army–Navy Game."<ref name="Horner">Template:Cite book</ref> Merchant Marine won six of the seven games in the series.

In 1968, the Boardwalk Bowl succeeded the Tangerine Bowl as one of the four regional finals in the College Division (which became Division II and Division III in 1973).<ref name= "upset">Template:Cite news</ref> The other three regionals were the Pecan (later Pioneer), Grantland Rice, and Camellia bowls. During these years, the bowl sought to match the two best non-major teams in a 17-state Eastern Region stretching from New England to Florida. Delaware secured a bid to the game in four consecutive years (1968 through 1971) and won all four games.

In 1973, under the new Division II playoff system, the Boardwalk Bowl became a national quarterfinal, while the other three quarterfinals were nameless and played at campus sites. The semifinals were the Pioneer and Grantland Rice bowls, and the Camellia was the championship game. Grambling defeated Delaware in the only Boardwalk Bowl played under this format. The game was discontinued after 1973, when the NCAA made all of its quarterfinals unnamed games at campus venues; after 1977 the semifinals likewise were unnamed (though the D-II championship game remained a "bowl" through 1985).

The Boardwalk Bowl shared Convention Hall with the Liberty Bowl in 1964, a transition year between the game's original home in Philadelphia and eventual site in Memphis. From 1970 through 1972, the Knute Rockne Bowl, which matched top programs from among the smallest eastern NCAA College Division schools, was also played in Convention Hall. In those three seasons, the two bowls were played two weeks apart.

Game results

Date	Winner		Loser		Game
December 2, 1961	Template:Cfb link	35	Merchant Marine	14	Little Army–Navy Game
December 1, 1962	Template:Cfb link	9	Template:Cfb link	0
November 30, 1963	Template:Cfb link	27	Template:Cfb link	13
November 28, 1964	Template:Cfb link	20	Template:Cfb link	16
November 27, 1965	Template:Cfb link	22	Template:Cfb link	12
November 26, 1966	Template:Cfb link	46	Template:Cfb link	7
November 25, 1967	Template:Cfb link	39	Template:Cfb link	6
December 14, 1968	Delaware	31	Template:Cfb link	24	NCAA College Division Regional Final
December 13, 1969	Delaware	31	Template:Cfb link	13
December 12, 1970	Delaware	38	Template:Cfb link	23
December 11, 1971	Delaware	72	Template:Cfb link	22
December 9, 1972	UMass	35	UC Davis	14
December 1, 1973	Grambling	17	Delaware	8	NCAA Division II Quarterfinal

See also

• List of college bowl games