Liberty Bowl 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 . Atlantic City convinced Dudley to move his game from Philadelphia to Atlantic City ' s Convention Hall for 1964 and guaranteed Dudley $ 25 , 000 . It would be the first Bowl Game played indoors . AstroTurf was still in its developmental stages and was unavailable for the game . Convention Hall was equipped with a grass surface with two inches of burlap underneath it ( as padding ) on top of cement . To keep the grass growing , artificial lighting was installed and kept on 24 hours a day . The entire process cost about $ 16 , 000 . End - zones were only 8 yards long . 6 , 059 fans saw Utah rout West Virginia . Dudley was paid $ 25 , 000 from Atlantic City businessmen , $ 60 , 000 from the gate , and $ 95 , 000 from television revenues , for $ 10 , 000 net profit . Dudley moved the game to Memphis in 1965 , where it has made its home at what became Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium to much larger crowds and has established itself as one of the oldest non - BCS bowls . During the late 1980s and early 1990s , the Liberty Bowl offered an automatic invitation to the winner of the Commander - in - Chief ' s Trophy , if that team was bowl eligible . From 1996 – 2004 , the regular season champion of Conference USA served as the host team . Since 2005 , the winner of the C - USA Championship game has received the berth , with 2011 being an exception . In 1996 and 1997 , the opponent for the C - USA champion was a team from the Big East Conference . In 1998 , C - USA faced either the Western Athletic Conference champion or an at - large team , taking the WAC champion if the Cotton Bowl Classic had not already done so . From 1999 to 2005 , the opponent for the C - USA champion was the Mountain West Conference champion . There were two exceptions : In 1999 , the Mountain West Conference did not have an outright champion , as three teams tied for the conference lead . The conference ' s bid for the game was given to . From the 2006 through the 2010 football seasons , the game matched the Conference USA champion with a team from the SEC . However , controversy has emerged following a report by the " Orlando Sentinel " where it was revealed that the SEC controlled who it would play " every two years " ; as such , Conference USA champion Southern Miss was not chosen for the bowl ( as they normally would have been ) . " This new agreement results in a 2011 matchup between Vanderbilt University from the SEC and the University of Cincinnati from the Big East Conference , thus ending a 16 consecutive year Conference USA representation . Also , starting in 2010 – 11 , if the SEC does not have enough eligible teams to fill all of its bowl obligations , the Liberty Bowl can also select a Big East team . The game is televised nationally on ESPN , and is carried nationwide by ESPN Radio , and internationally by ESPN International . The most recent edition of the Liberty Bowl was played on December 31 , 2011 . The game matched Coaches ' Poll # 24 Cincinnati against Vanderbilt and unlike most minor bowls aired on the broadcast network ABC rather than its cable brandmate ESPN . The game returned to December at the end of 2010 after being played on January 2 in 2009 and 2010 , the only times since the bowl was founded in 1959 that it had a non - December date . ( Technically there was no 2008 game , as the game after the 2008 season was played January 2 , 2009 . ) Cincinnati defeated Vanderbilt in a second - half comeback . The 2012 Liberty Bowl will feature a matchup between the Iowa State Cyclones ( 9th place in the Big 12 ) and the Tulsa Golden Hurricane ( Conference USA champions ) . Iowa State defeated Tulsa 38 - 23 in the season ' s first weekend . Though the bowl normally selects a team from the SEC , it invited Iowa State because the SEC did not have enough bowl - eligible teams to fill all of its contracted bowl games .