College Football 2021: Ranking the best trophies for bowl games
By Shane Lunnen
4. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl Trophy
Oh, come on. It is a bowl trophy that is literally a bowl of potatoes. How could this not be on the list? This trophy just misses the cut into the top three.
The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl originally was named the Humanitarian Bowl when it first begin at the end of the 1997 season. Since 2011 the bowl adopted its current name when the Idaho Potato Commission signed a naming rights deal.
The game has mostly been tied to Mountain West and WAC teams. The current conference tie-in features representatives from the Mountain West and MAC conferences.
Despite its $750,000 payout to each participating school, UCLA famously opted out of playing in the 2001 version of the game. The reasoning was the Bruins feared it would cost them several hundred thousand dollars due to the minimum ticket purchase and travel required to go to a lower-tier bowl game.
The game is the oldest cold-weather bowl game currently in operation. In addition to the bowl of potatoes, the winning coach usually gets a Gatorade tub of french fries dumped onto them. One of the many things that makes college football such a wacky yet awesome sport.