The
California Bowl was a post-season
college footballCollege football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
bowl game played annually at
Bulldog StadiumBulldog Stadium at Jim Sweeney Field is an outdoor football stadium on the campus of California State University, Fresno in Fresno, California. It is the home field of the Fresno State Bulldogs of the Western Athletic Conference. The stadium opened in 1980 with a capacity of 30,000 and has a...
in
Fresno, CaliforniaFresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...
, from 1981 to 1991. The games matched the championship teams from the
Big West ConferenceThe Big West Conference is an NCAA-affiliated Division I mid-major college athletic conference. When the conference began in 1969, its name was the Pacific Coast Athletic Association . After nineteen years, in 1988, its name was changed to the Big West Conference. The conference stopped...
(formerly the Pacific Coast Athletic Association) with teams from the
Mid-American ConferenceThe Mid-American Conference is a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I college athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twelve full member schools are in Ohio and Michigan, with single members...
. During the bowl's existence it was generally the first bowl game played during the postseason. It was regarded as one of the lower-profile bowl games in that the conferences involved were mid-majors, and was one of the first bowls to restrict its television
marketingMarketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
efforts to the medium of cable television. Fresno State largely dominated this game, playing in five of the 11 games and winning four of them.
Due to the purchase of naming rights by the
California Raisin Advisory BoardThe California Raisin Advisory Board , Fresno, California, is most notable for the use of The California Raisins to market their namesake product, raisins.It was abolished in 1994. There is now a California Raisin Marketing Board....
, the California Bowl was sometimes referred to as the
California Raisin Bowl in contemporary accounts. This is not to be confused with the bowl game, played 1946–1949, called the
Raisin BowlThe Raisin Bowl was an annual post-season American college football bowl game played at Ratcliffe Stadium in Fresno, California, from 1946 to 1949. The first four games were played on January 1, the last on December 31. The games pitted a California team against an at-large team...
which was also played in Fresno.
In 1992, the game moved to
Las Vegas, NevadaLas Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
and became the
Las Vegas BowlThe Maaco Bowl Las Vegas is an NCAA-sanctioned Division I-A post-season college football bowl game that has been played annually at 40,000-seat Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. since 1992. From 1992 to 1996, matchups featured the champion teams from the Big West and Mid-American...
; it also dropped the automatic affiliation with the
Big West ConferenceThe Big West Conference is an NCAA-affiliated Division I mid-major college athletic conference. When the conference began in 1969, its name was the Pacific Coast Athletic Association . After nineteen years, in 1988, its name was changed to the Big West Conference. The conference stopped...
and
Mid-American ConferenceThe Mid-American Conference is a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I college athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twelve full member schools are in Ohio and Michigan, with single members...
.
Game results
| Date played | |Losing team | |MVP |
| December 19, 1981 |
|
27 |
|
25 |
|
| December 18, 1982 |
|
29 |
|
28 |
Jeff TedfordJeff Tedford is an American football coach and the current head coach of the California Golden Bears football team, a position he has held since 2002. As a first-time head coach, Tedford has won wide acclaim for revitalizing the Cal football program...
QB |
| December 17, 1983 |
|
20 |
|
13 |
Lou Wicks FB |
| December 15, 1984 |
* |
13 |
|
30 |
|
| December 14, 1985 |
|
51 |
|
7 |
Mike Mancini P |
| December 13, 1986 |
|
37 |
|
7 |
Mike Perez Michael Paul Perez is a former American football quarterback. He was drafted by the New York Giants in the seventh round of the 1988 NFL Draft...
QB |
| December 12, 1987 |
|
30 |
|
27 |
Gary Patton RB |
| December 10, 1988 |
|
35 |
|
30 |
Darrell Rosette RB |
| December 9, 1989 |
|
27 |
|
6 |
|
| December 8, 1990 |
|
48 |
|
24 |
|
| December 14, 1991 |
|
28 |
|
21 |
|
* Toledo lost this game, but was later awarded the win due to UNLV's use of ineligible players earlier in the season.