
It has been said that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach. So when somebody got the bright idea in 2006 create the Pizza Bowl, it seemed like a natural.
Face it, there's no better combination than football, pizza and beer.
But they forgot two ingredients at the inaugural event featuring South Florida and East Carolina — pizza and beer. That's right, Papa John's and the vendor couldn't work out a deal before kickoff so no pizza at the Pizza Bowl. And because the Smithfield community around Legion Field in Birmingham is a bit on the tough side, no chain would consider delivering a pie into the stadium.
That didn't go over well, especially when the concession stands ran out of beer early in the game.
Another issue: The "announced" crowd of 32,023 was told to sit on one side of the stadium facing the
cameras to deceive viewers into thinking the crowd was bigger than it
actually was.
Year Two was better. The ESPN-sponsored game featuring Southern Mississippi and Cincinnati drew an "announced" 35,258, and if you were lucky enough, you scored one of those souvenir T-shirts with "Cincinnatti" mis-spelled.
But we're happy to report that Year Three of the event had few problems, according to Greg, our correspondent on the scene. Greg filed his usual collection of photos from Sunday night's pep rallies and Monday's game between North Carolina State and Rutgers, so if you dare to experience Pizza Bowl 2008, give a click to see what came down. They even correctly spelled the names of the teams in this year's game.