Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Latest Results, Recent History, and What to Know

The most recent Famous Idaho Potato Bowl was not close for long. Washington State beat Utah State 34 to 21 on December 22, 2025, at Albertsons Stadium in Boise, rolling up 628 yards of offense, within 30 of the game’s all time record, behind 334 yards and three touchdowns from Zevi Eckhaus. Senior receiver Josh Meredith took MVP honors in the last game of his career.

The Cougars did it with their defensive coordinator running the team as interim head coach and the man hired to take over next season watching from the stands. It was their first postseason win since the 2018 Alamo Bowl.

The number that mattered most to the bowl, though, was 17,031. That was the biggest crowd the game has drawn since 2018, and about 65 percent more than showed up the year before.

The 30th edition is next, on Monday, December 21, 2026. If you are catching up on what this game looks like today, this is the guide.

Table of Contents

• What is the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl?
• The bowl that got built because Las Vegas moved on
• Where the game sits after realignment
• Recent Famous Idaho Potato Bowl results
• Every Famous Idaho Potato Bowl result
• The record book is genuinely strange
• What’s next: the 2026 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
• How teams get to Boise
• Fuel a team that can get here
• Going to the game: Boise logistics
• Bowl week: everything that isn’t the game
• What to do in Boise in December
• How rosters shift between November and kickoff
• Q&A

One calendar note before you plan around it. The game has slipped into January twice, after the 2003 and 2019 seasons, which means calendar 2004 and calendar 2020 each got two Potato Bowls and calendar 2003 and 2019 got none. This year is a straightforward December game.

What is the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl?

The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is a college football bowl game played at Albertsons Stadium on the Boise State campus every December since 1997. It is the longest running cold weather bowl still operating, and the bowl bills itself as the northernmost bowl game in the country. ESPN Events owns and operates it, one of 17 bowls in that portfolio.

The name has changed more often than almost any bowl in the sport. It started as the Humanitarian Bowl, tied to Boise’s World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame. Then it was the Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl under Micron’s memory brand, then the MPC Computers Bowl, then back to the Humanitarian Bowl with Roady’s Truck Stops, then the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl for a single year. The Idaho Potato Commission signed a six year naming deal in August 2011 and extended it in 2017, and the current name has stuck longer than any of the others. Hear it once and you know exactly what it is and where it is.

The venue is the other half of the identity. Boise State laid down blue AstroTurf in 1986, the first playing surface in football history that was not green, and no other FBS program has followed with a full field in another color. The athletic director who approved it was Gene Bleymaier, which matters for the next section, because he is also the reason this bowl exists.

The bowl that got built because Las Vegas moved on

In early 1997 the Big West Conference had no guaranteed bowl for its football champion. UNLV had left for the Western Athletic Conference, and the Las Vegas Bowl followed the local interest, switching its affiliation to the WAC. The Big West was suddenly a league with a champion and nowhere to send it.

Bleymaier volunteered Boise. His pitch was counterintuitive: build a bowl at a cold weather site, in a city that had supported football at every level for decades. Big West commissioner Dennis Farrell backed it, and the NCAA certified the game on June 12, 1997.

The first Humanitarian Bowl was played on December 29, 1997, in front of a little over 16,000 fans on the blue turf. Cincinnati beat Utah State 35 to 19 in a game the Aggies were not especially motivated for, given that coach John L. Smith was already on his way to Louisville. Two years later, Smith was back on the other sideline with Louisville, losing to Boise State 34 to 31 in the same stadium.

The early years were better than the game’s reputation suggests. Clemson came in 2001. Georgia Tech won twice, once by 42 in a January 2004 game squeezed between BCS bowls. Boise State went 12 and 1 in 2002 and finished the season here. Miami played Larry Coker’s last game as head coach on the blue turf in 2006 and needed a stop at the end to survive Nevada 21 to 20. And in 2001 a UCLA team that had won seven of eleven turned down an invitation, because the payout came with obligations: sell tickets, bring a sponsor, book the hotel rooms.

Where the game sits after realignment

For most of the last decade the Potato Bowl was a Mountain West versus MAC game. That is no longer what it is.

Five Mountain West schools left for the rebuilt Pac-12 on July 1, 2026: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State. The Pac-12 fields eight football members, those five plus holdovers Oregon State and Washington State and Texas State out of the Sun Belt. The Mountain West restocked to ten: Air Force, Hawai’i, Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV and Wyoming, plus newcomers UTEP, Northern Illinois and North Dakota State. Our Pac-12 Week 1 preview and Mountain West Week 1 preview are the fastest way to get current on both leagues.

The bowl’s own 2026 materials list the pairing as Mountain West versus Pac-12, and both conference logos now sit at the top of its site. Washington State’s appearance last December was the first Pac-12 entry in the game’s history. The June announcement described the bowl as traditionally drawing from the Pac-12, Mountain West, MAC and Sun Belt, which is a polite way of saying the selection order this December is going to be fluid. Some listings still show the old MAC agreement. Treat the conference pairing as settled and the specific slotting as not.

The Mountain West kept four bowl affiliations through the split: the Arizona Bowl, the Potato Bowl, the Hawai’i Bowl and the New Mexico Bowl. The first confirmed Pac-12 partner is the revived Poinsettia Bowl for its champion, with the rest of its postseason map still filling in.

There is a storyline buried in all of that. Boise State is now on the visiting side of its own bowl. The Broncos have won three of four here but have not played in it since 2005, when Matt Ryan and Boston College beat them 27 to 21, a year before the Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma made them a national story. The bowl should want them back badly. The three largest crowds in its history, 30,493 in 2005, 30,446 in 2002 and 29,283 in 1999, all came with Boise State on the field. Utah State, meanwhile, has six appearances, more than anyone, and has won one of them. It is now in the other conference too.

Recent Famous Idaho Potato Bowl results

Two patterns worth noticing. The favorite has lost three of the last four: San Jose State was laying four in 2022, Utah State a point and a half in 2023 and again in 2025, and all three went home. Northern Illinois, favored by two in 2024, is the only one that held serve. And the winner has scored at least 28 points in ten straight editions, a run that starts with Idaho’s 61 in 2016. If you are filling out a bowl pick pool, this is not the game where you take the under and the chalk.

Attendance is the other trend, and it points up, though it has a long way to climb back. The game topped 25,000 in ten of the eleven years from 2002 through 2012. The 2021 through 2024 editions drew between 10,000 and 12,200. Last year’s 17,031 broke that pattern, and a 30th anniversary game against a Pac-12 opponent should hold it. Washington State brought the crowd, which is no surprise if you have read about the Palouse rivalry it plays eight miles from the Idaho line, and Utah State travels too, as the Battle of the Brothers shows every fall.

Every Famous Idaho Potato Bowl result

All 29 games, under all six of the bowl’s names.

Two notes on the table. Through 2014 the bowl named an MVP from each team, and the winning side’s is listed here. And the 2003 and 2019 games were played in January, which is why the season column and the date column disagree twice.

The record book is genuinely strange

For a bowl that gets treated as a minor stop on the December calendar, the Potato Bowl’s record book reads like a highlight reel.

The 2016 game is the outlier of outliers. Idaho beat Colorado State 61 to 50, and the two teams combined for 1,206 total yards and broke or tied 24 bowl records. The 84 combined points in the second half were the most in college football bowl history. The first quarter was scoreless.

Idaho has won all three of its appearances, and it made them as a member of three different conferences: the Big West in 1998, the WAC in 2009, the Sun Belt in 2016. The 2009 game is the best finish the bowl has produced. Bowling Green led 42 to 35 with 32 seconds left. Idaho drove 66 yards in three plays, scored with four seconds on the clock, and went for two. Nate Enderle found Preston Davis. Idaho 43, Bowling Green 42.

Quarterbacks have used this game as a launching pad. Josh Allen played his last college game here in 2017, going 6 of 7 for 104 yards and three touchdowns in the first quarter of a 37 to 14 Wyoming win, then went seventh overall in the draft. Zach Wilson, a true freshman at the time, went 18 for 18 for 317 yards and four touchdowns for BYU in 2018, the most completions without a miss in the history of college bowl games. Colin Kaepernick nearly brought Nevada back against Maryland in 2008. Carson Strong threw for five touchdowns in the 2020 edition, played in an empty stadium.

And P.J. Daniels’ January 2004 line is still standing: 307 rushing yards for Georgia Tech against Tulsa, in a 52 to 10 game that also produced the bowl’s largest margin of victory and its stingiest defensive performance.

Almost nobody arrives ranked. In 29 games, exactly four ranked teams have played in Boise: Boise State in 2002, Virginia in 2004, Boston College in 2005 and Utah State in 2012. None in the fourteen years since. This is a game for teams the polls stopped thinking about in October, which is part of why the finishes are so good.

The bowl says it has hosted 28 different universities and sent 21 first round NFL draft picks through Boise. Neither number is going down.

What’s next: the 2026 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

The 30th Famous Idaho Potato Bowl kicks off at 12:30 p.m. MT / 2:30 p.m. ET on Monday, December 21, 2026, at Albertsons Stadium, on ESPN. Teams will not be known until conference championship weekend in early December.

Executive director Danielle Brazil framed the 30th as a milestone year for the bowl, pointing to three decades of support from fans, sponsors, volunteers and the Boise community. Expect the anniversary to show up in the week’s programming.

Ticket prices run $20 to $160, sold through famousidahopotatobowl.com or the Boise State Athletics ticket office. Premium packages, which bundle prime locations, Tent Village hospitality and corporate exposure, go through the bowl office at 208.424.1011. A Monday afternoon game in a stadium that seats 36,387 and has been running under capacity for years is one of the easier bowl tickets in the country to get, and one of the cheapest.

How teams get to Boise

There is no committee here and no bracket. Bowl slotting is a negotiation.

A team needs six wins against FBS opponents to be bowl eligible. From there, conferences work through their bowl partners in a rough pecking order, with input from the bowls themselves about which fan bases will travel, which matchups draw a rating, and which teams have already played in a given game recently.

That last factor cuts against repeat visitors and for fresh names, which is why the participant list is so scattered: Clemson, Miami, Maryland, Boston College and Georgia Tech have all played in this game, as have Akron, Eastern Michigan, Georgia State and Kent State.

For 2026 the Mountain West has four bowl partners for ten teams and the Pac-12’s postseason map is still forming, so the Potato Bowl’s selection position is less predictable than usual. Our early bowl game projections get updated as the picture clears, and if you are tracking the playoff end of the calendar we run the same rundown on the Fiesta, Cotton, Rose and Sugar bowls.

If you want a way to size up a matchup you have never seen before, RallyFuel’s school rivalry tool puts two programs side by side on NIL activity, fan engagement and rankings.

Fuel a team that can get here

Eighteen programs can reach Boise through the two conference partners, and every one of them has a RallyFuel page where you can back its athletes directly.

Pac-12: Boise State · Colorado State · Fresno State · Oregon State · San Diego State · Texas State · Utah State · Washington State

Mountain West: Air Force · Hawai’i · Nevada · New Mexico · North Dakota State · Northern Illinois · San Jose State · UNLV · UTEP · Wyoming

Two of those are worth a second look before December. Wyoming has won both of its trips to Boise, in 2017 behind Josh Allen and in 2021 behind Levi Williams. And Northern Illinois is 2 for 2 here as well, in 2010 and again in double overtime in 2024.

If you are pulling for the program with the best record in this building, though, it is not in either league. Idaho has won all three of its appearances and has not been back since 2016.

Going to the game: Boise logistics

The stadium. Albertsons Stadium, 1400 Bronco Lane, on the east end of the Boise State campus with the Boise River behind the north end zone. Capacity 36,387. Elevation 2,695 feet. The field is officially Lyle Smith Field, and the surface is blue FieldTurf, most recently replaced in 2010. It was Bronco Stadium until Albertsons bought the naming rights in 2014.

Getting there. This is the easiest travel of any bowl in the country. Boise Airport sits about ten minutes from the stadium. You can land, drop bags downtown and walk to the game. Downtown Boise is roughly a mile away, an easy stroll along Broadway or the Greenbelt, which is why so many fans skip the parking question entirely.

Parking. Campus lots handle game day, and the bowl points fans to Boise State’s Public Safety and Transportation office for rates and lot maps. If you are staying downtown, walking is faster than driving.

Clear bag policy. One clear plastic or vinyl bag no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches, or a one gallon clear freezer bag, plus a small clutch no larger than 4.5 by 6.5 inches. Backpacks, coolers, briefcases and large purses are out, and there is no bag storage on site, so anything that does not comply goes back to the car.

No reentry. Once you leave, you are out. Plan the tailgate accordingly.

Concessions. Beer and seltzer are sold throughout the stadium at $8, starting 90 minutes before kickoff, with wristband ID checkpoints on the concourse and one in the east stadium expansion. Two upper level kiosks do not carry them.

What to wear. Boise winters are milder and drier than people expect, but a December afternoon runs from 25 to 45 degrees and the sun drops behind the west stands well before the fourth quarter. The last two kickoffs were 39 degrees and sunny with a 15 mph wind in 2023, and 44 and cloudy in 2024. Cold, not punishing. Layers, a real coat, and something between you and an aluminum bench. The turf plays fine in snow, and a snow game here is a great watch.

Bowl week: everything that isn’t the game

The Potato Bowl leans hard into the week around the game, and most of it is free.

Simplot French Fry Feed and Fan Fest is the pregame anchor: free food and drinks, fries from Simplot, the Famous Idaho Potato Truck, live music, cornhole, and a youth football clinic in the campus indoor practice facility. In recent years it has run for the three hours before kickoff, with stadium gates opening about 90 minutes out.

The Mash Bash is the downtown pep rally at the Grove Plaza: both teams’ bands and cheer squads, an hour of noise in the middle of the city, free and built for families.

Tent Village is the hospitality area attached to premium ticket packages, and there is an FCA breakfast and an ESPN Zone activation as well.

One caution. The bowl’s site carries the previous year’s event times until it refreshes for the new game, and this year’s kickoff moved from noon to 12:30. Confirm times in December rather than booking around what is posted in September.

What to do in Boise in December

Bogus Basin. Boise’s nonprofit hometown mountain, 16 miles north of downtown but about a 40 minute drive up the Foothills road. Roughly 2,600 acres, night skiing, Nordic trails, snowshoeing and an 800 foot tubing hill that visiting teams have been known to try during bowl week.

Winter Garden aGlow. The Idaho Botanical Garden strings more than 600,000 lights across 15 acres from late November through the end of December. Buy tickets in advance, because it sells out.

The Basque Block. Boise has one of the largest Basque communities outside Europe, and a single block of Grove Street holds the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, the boarding house next door and a cluster of restaurants. Order the croquetas and the lamb.

Idaho Steelheads hockey. ECHL, downtown at Idaho Central Arena, loud and cheap, and their season is in full swing in December.

Julia Davis Park museums. The Boise Art Museum, the Idaho State Museum, the Discovery Center and Zoo Boise are all in one park a few minutes from the stadium. Good insurance against bad weather.

Old Idaho Penitentiary. A working prison from 1872 to 1973, now open to walk through. Strange and worth an hour.

Hot springs. Idaho is hot spring country, and the easiest developed option from town is The Springs in Idaho City, about an hour northeast through the mountains. Book ahead in winter.

Downtown. Freak Alley Gallery’s murals, the Idaho State Capitol (free, open, and one of the few geothermally heated state capitols in the country), 8th Street’s restaurant row, and the Greenbelt if the weather cooperates.

How rosters shift between November and kickoff

The gap between bowl selections and kickoff is about three weeks, and games outside the playoff feel every day of it.

Transfer portal. The December window opens right as bowl practices start. Players unhappy with playing time or fit can enter and be gone before the game, and Group of Five rosters get picked over hardest. We broke down how the portal reshaped the sport and which teams built themselves through it this season. RallyFuel’s transfer portal tracker filters by portal status, sport and conference if you want to see who has actually left.

Draft decisions. Projected early round picks sometimes sit out bowls to protect their stock. Fewer players in this game are in that category, but a breakout receiver or corner is exactly the profile that skips.

Coaching churn. This is the one that hits Boise hardest, and last year’s game is the case study. Washington State arrived having lost three head coaches in three seasons: Jake Dickert to Wake Forest, then Jimmy Rogers to Iowa State after a single year. Defensive coordinator Jesse Bobbit ran the team as interim, Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore had already been hired for 2026 and was in the stands, and the Cougars won by two touchdowns anyway. Fresno State had done the same thing a year earlier under Tim Skipper, after Jeff Tedford stepped down for health reasons. Go all the way back to the first edition in 1997 and Utah State’s John L. Smith was already packing for Louisville. Late December is hiring season, and the team you scouted in November may be running someone else’s game plan.

NIL and revenue sharing. Direct school revenue sharing under the House settlement, capped at $20.5 million per school in its first year and rising annually, has given programs a tool to keep a star who might otherwise leave in December. It has not eliminated the churn. It has changed who wins it. If the mechanics are new to you, start with how revenue sharing models actually work and who is really getting paid under them. The answer matters more at a Mountain West or Pac-12 program than it does in the SEC.

Before you make a pick on this game, check who is actually dressing. The November depth chart is a rough draft.

Q&A

Who won the most recent Famous Idaho Potato Bowl? Washington State beat Utah State 34 to 21 on December 22, 2025. Zevi Eckhaus threw for 334 yards and three touchdowns in a 628 yard team performance, and receiver Josh Meredith was named MVP. It was the first Pac-12 appearance in the game’s history and drew 17,031, the largest crowd since 2018.

When is the next Famous Idaho Potato Bowl? Monday, December 21, 2026, at 12:30 p.m. MT / 2:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. It is the 30th edition.

Which conferences play in it? The bowl lists the 2026 pairing as Mountain West versus Pac-12. It was a Mountain West versus MAC game for most of the last decade, and the bowl also has history with the Sun Belt, so treat the exact selection order as unsettled until December.

Where is it played? Albertsons Stadium on the Boise State campus, capacity 36,387, on the blue turf. It has been played there every year since 1997.

Why is the field blue? Boise State installed blue AstroTurf in 1986, the first playing surface in football history that was not green. The school holds a federal trademark on blue artificial turf, and no other FBS program plays on a field in another color.

Which team has the best record in the game? Idaho has won all three of its appearances, each with a different conference affiliation. Boise State has won three of four but has not played in it since 2005. Utah State has the most appearances with six and has won only one.

What is the bag policy? One clear bag no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches or a one gallon clear freezer bag, plus a clutch no larger than 4.5 by 6.5 inches. No bag storage on site. No reentry once you leave the stadium.

How cold does it get? Boise in late December generally runs 25 to 45 degrees, dry more often than not, with sun. Cold, not brutal. Dress for a 12:30 kickoff that ends in shade.

How much are tickets? $20 to $160 through the bowl site or the Boise State ticket office. This is consistently one of the most affordable bowl tickets in the country.

How do I get to the stadium? Boise Airport is about ten minutes away and downtown is roughly a mile from the stadium. Most visiting fans stay downtown and walk. Campus lots handle drivers, and Boise State’s transportation office publishes rates and maps.

Keep reading

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• Sugar Bowl: Latest Results, Recent History, and What to Know
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• 2026 Pop-Tarts Bowl: The Big 12 Has Won Three Straight, and the ACC Is Overdue
• RallyFuel’s Early College Football Bowl Game Projections
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The two conferences in this game

• Mountain West Football Schedule 2026: Every Game, Every Week
• Pac-12 Football Schedule 2026: Every Game, Every Week
• Pac-12 Week 1 Preview: The Rebuilt Conference Comes Out Swinging
• Mountain West Week 1 Preview: A New Era Above The Rest
• Mountain West NIL Deals: How Fans Support Mountain West Athletes
• Pac-12 NIL Deals: How Fans Support Pac-12 Athletes

Teams and rivalries that run through Boise

• Eight Miles and a State Line: Inside the Battle of the Palouse
• The Battle of the Brothers: Utah State and Utah Renew Football’s Oldest Rivalry
• 3,300 Miles and a Missing Cowboy: Inside the Hawai’i and Wyoming Paniolo Trophy Rivalry
• NIL Deals Utah State · San Jose State NIL Deals · NIU Huskies · New Mexico NIL Deals
• Idaho NIL Laws: Rules for College and High School Athletes