Gildan New Mexico Bowl

The New Mexico Bowl is a college football postseason game, held annually at University Stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The game, traditionally one of the first of bowl season, pits a team from the Mountain West Conference against a team from the Western Athletic Conference and is televised on ESPN. The first New Mexico Bowl was held in 2006, and the most recent saw Temple defeat Wyoming to kick off the 2011 bowl season.

In 2005, the New Mexico Sports Authority began the process of bringing a postseason bowl game to New Mexico. Along with the University of New Mexico, the group worked with ESPN Regional Television to formalize a deal. ERT assumed ownership of the bowl, and in April 2006, the NCAA certified the bowl game for play beginning that season, along with three other bowl games (the now-defunct International Bowl, the Birmingham Bowl and a fifth BCS game).

The New Mexico Bowl committed to match up teams from the Mountain West Conference and the Western Athletic Conference, the homes of the only two Division I-A programs in the state of New Mexico. The first New Mexico Bowl was played Dec. 23, 2006. San Jose State of the WAC defeated MWC representative New Mexico 20-12. New Mexico came back the next year to defeat Nevada 23-0.

In 2008, for the first time in the bowl's short history, no team from New Mexico was represented. Colorado State defeated Fresno State 40-35 in the highest-scoring New Mexico Bowl to date. Fresno State also lost the following season, 35-28 to Wyoming. Brigham Young University earned the MWC another victory in the 2010 New Mexico Bowl, easily topping UTEP, 52-24.

The New Mexico Bowl once again opened the bowl season in 2011, and again featured a match-up of out-of-state teams. Temple easily defeated Wyoming to earn its first bowl victory since 1979.

The New Mexico Bowl trophy is a 20-inch, bowl-shaped piece of Zia Pueblo pottery, hand coiled and painted by Marcellus and Elizabeth Media. The pottery features the iconic Zia sun symbol and images of football players, a deer, a mountain lion, a buffalo and an eagle.

In addition to the game trophy, the New Mexico Bowl awards Zia Pueblo shields constructed by Ralph Aragon to the offensive and defensive MVPs of the game.