ECAC Bowl
The Eastern College Athletic Conference Bowl was a college football bowl game played from 1989 to 2003. From 1993 until its cancellation in 2003, the game pitted the champion of the Northeast Conference against the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion. All games were played on campus sites.
All games involved a team from either New York State or Pennsylvania, and only the 1997 game, hosted by Georgetown University, did not take place in either one of those states. At the time, the NEC and MAAC were two of three conferences that did not have an automatic bid into the NCAA Division I Football Championship but had not voluntarily abstained from the tournament; the conferences were notable in that they did not offer football scholarships. The Northeast Conference edged the MAAC in all-time results, with NEC members winning six of the ten games.
By 2003, several of the MAAC universities were closing down their football teams, and the ECAC Bowl was likewise shuttered; this contraction eventually led to the conference's dropping of the sport in 2007. From 2006-2009, the NEC champion instead participated in the Gridiron Classic against the Pioneer Football League champion. The NEC was awarded an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament in 2010, with the PFL receiving their bid in 2013.
The ECAC has since sponsored a six-bowl regional bowl series for teams in Division III that do not qualify for that division's NCAA tournament.Results
