Akron, the Las Vegas Bowl, and the Great American West

Akron’s future trip to Allegiant Stadium drips with nostalgia for a bygone era.

“Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.” That’s what Horace Greeley (or someone else, as many dispute) said about the American West centuries ago.

The American West has long been a source of wonder for many Americans. Naturally, this mystique carried into college football. The desire for young men in the Midwest to “go west” is woven into the fabric of college football. For nearly 70 years, the Big Ten sent its champion to the Rose Bowl to play in American sports’ most fabled tradition. This upcoming season, they’ll embrace four programs located on the West Coast into the fold.

The MAC, naturally, followed the footsteps of its older and more well-known Midwestern counterpart and also sent their champions west in pursuit of glory and prosperity starting in 1981 with the California Raisin Bowl, pitting their champion against the PCAA (later named the Big West) champion until 1991.

Before Las Vegas became an epicenter of the pro sports world, they had the Las Vegas Bowl. Before there was an Allegiant Stadium or the Raiders, the MAC grew up with the Las Vegas Bowl at Sam Boyd Stadium. They were there at the start in 1992 and sent their champion to the bowl until 1996. The MAC’s time in the Las Vegas Bowl is forever etched in college football lore due to its 1995 game between Toledo and Nevada becoming the first overtime game in college football history.

In 1997, the Las Vegas Bowl and the MAC parted ways.

The Las Vegas Bowl opted for a Western Athletic Conference vs. at-large matchup, and the MAC decided in turn to keep its champions close to home for the holidays in the newly-formed Motor City Bowl. Recent tie-ins to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and Arizona Bowl are the closest the MAC has come to Las Vegas in the postseason.

Since the MAC’s exit from the Las Vegas Bowl, the conference has only had teams play in the Sin City three times in 27 years. Toledo visited UNLV in 2003, Central Michigan in 2013, and Northern Illinois in 2014. Recently, Akron announced it would be the fourth MAC team to play in Las Vegas since the conference’s partnership with the Las Vegas Bowl ended in 1997. The Zips agreed to a home-and-home with UNLV for 2026 and 2027, with the Zips visiting Allegiant Stadium in 2027.

Although it seems like just a random Group of Five non-conference series, the matchup provides much intrigue.

Hardly any fanbase has had less to smile about in their FBS tenure since Akron. In 37 years at the FBS level, the Zips have only eight winning seasons and three bowl appearances. The MAC’s Rolodex of bowl destinations includes warm weather destinations such as Boca Raton, Orlando, and Tucson. However, the Zips have hardly had a destination game with this level of intrigue for the long-suffering fanbase. Two of their bowl appearances were in Detroit, a familiar city to many Akron fans and a cold environment in December, and Boise, hardly a tourist’s getaway in December.

While other MAC schools go westward and play against Mountain West and former PAC-12 members in non-conference, the Zips hardly venture westward in their non-conference endeavors. The Zips have not played a regular season game west of Manhattan, Kansas, since 1988, when they visited the New Mexico Lobos. The 2027 trip to Las Vegas and an NFL stadium is a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Akron fans.

Akron never appeared in the Las Vegas Bowl in the five-year partnership between the bowl and the MAC. Zips fans who longed to see their school breakthrough for a postseason trip to Las Vegas will finally have their consolation three decades later.

The Midwest and the American West are vastly different but forever intertwined places because of college football. Las Vegas will always hold a special place in the MAC’s heritage as the destination its champions set their sites on for five years.

Akron’s series with UNLV shows the importance of remembering the past and the wonder intersectional matchups bring. The mystique of a rare trip out west and the nod to history make series like Akron-UNLV significant. Akron’s trip to UNLV is over 30 years in the making.

For fans used to their familiar confines in the Midwest, Akron fans could find themselves heeding Horace Greely (or whoever it was) and their immortal call to “Go West, young man.”