2005 Liberty Bowl

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Liberty Bowl is an annual U.S. American college football bowl game played in December of each year from 1959 to 2007 and in January in 2009 and 2010. The Liberty Bowl was sponsored by AXA Financial and was known as the AXA Liberty Bowl from 1997 to 2003. Since 2004, the game has been sponsored by Memphis-based auto parts retailer AutoZone, and is now called the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. A. F. "Bud" Dudley, a former Villanova University athletic-director, created the Liberty Bowl in Philadelphia in 1959. The game was played at Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium. It was the only cold-weather bowl game of its time, and was plagued by poor attendance. The 1963 game between Mississippi State and NC State drew less than 10,000 fans and absorbed a loss in excess of $40,000. The first Liberty Bowl game was the most successful of the five held in Philadelphia, as 38,000 fans watched Penn State beat Alabama 7-0 in 1959.