Final Independence Bowl Team Predictions of the Year

This year's Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl is set up to be one of the best in recent memory. The game is scheduled for Saturday, December 28th, 2024 at Independence Stadium in Shreveport. The game will kick off at 8:15pm local time, and will be broadcast nationwide on ESPN. All of those elements are prime for Shreveport's bowl game, even before we know who the teams are.

But who those teams are going to be is also a huge deal. Not just for the local audience, but for the ESPN viewers as well.

Currently, the main tie-ins for the 2024 Independence Bowl are the Pac-12 and the American Athletic Conference. Normally, having the Pac-12 as a leader of your bowl matchup would be a really good spot. While in previous years, the Pac-12 was home to powerhouse college football programs, and National Champion programs, that's pretty far from where they are now. Currently, the Pac-12 is actually the "Pac-2", with just Oregon State and Washington State making up the whole conference.

But even though the Pac-12 only has two teams, a workaround has been created to fill many of their previous bowl commitments, including the Independence Bowl.

The teams who were part of the Pac-12 when their agreement with the Independence Bowl was put together will still be eligible this year. Those teams will include the Oregon Ducks, Arizona State Sun Devils, Colorado Buffaloes, Washington Huskies, USC Trojans, and Cal Golden Bears. Even though these teams are scattered across other conferences now.

The other side of the coin is the American Athletic Conference, who has undergone some recent realignment too. But unlike the Pac-12, the American realignment has added some quality depth to the conference. Since 2023, the American has added Army, UAB, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, and Rice.

Ideally, the 2024 Independence Bowl would feature a team in the Pac-12 alignment sphere, as well as an American Athletic Conference team. But heading into the final week of the college football seasons before bowl matchups are filled out, what are the final predictions from the experts? Lets take a look:

Athlon Sports: West Virginia vs. Army

Athlon has projected West Virginia for a while, but they're now coming around to the idea of Army making up the 2020 postponement in 2024. Which would be pretty epic for everyone who fought to make the 2020 game happen.

CBS Sports: Army vs. NC State

More Army love for Shreveport from CBS. But the NC State is a headscratcher. NC State plays in the ACC, who doesn't have an agreement for the Independence Bowl this year. Previously CBS projected Boston College, also from the ACC...so maybe they just got the bowl tie-in confused.

ESPN
Bonagura: West Virginia vs. Louisiana
Schlabach: West Virginia vs. Louisiana

ESPN's bowl projections always seem odd. They strike me as more of a hot take board than real inside knowledge. Last week, one of their pickers had Louisiana in their matchup, and the other had West Virginia as part of theirs. This week, they came together to project the same matchup, by mixing both of last week's calls. However...ULL plays in the Sun Belt, which isn't one of the main tie-ins for this year's game. So that seems like an odd guess.

Sporting News: Tulane vs. Washington

Washington makes sense from the Pac-12 fallout, and kick off time, so that would be great. Putting Tulane in the mix would be huge for Louisiana. So this could be one of the best possible pitches we've seen yet.

USA Today: Tulane vs Georgia Southern

Same as we said before about Tulane, great idea. This is also the second week in a row USA Today has projected them. But last week they suggested James Madison, now it's Georgia Southern from the Sun Belt. This feels like a miss. With all of the Pac-12 floating options, it doesn't seem like a Sun Belt team will be necessary.

Action Sports: Memphis vs. West Virginia

Brett McMurphy usually doesn't miss. I've heard people with on-the-ground involvement in bowl selections express dismay about how McMurphy knows things before decision makers do. I'm not sure how he does it, but he does. So I wasn't thrilled when I saw he took Army off his prediction from last week, and replaced them with Memphis. Now, Memphis is a 10 win team, and has had a great season, but they're not the Army matchup we've been looking to capture for a few seasons now.

I will put this out there on Memphis though; quarterback Seth Henigan is a record-setting machine at Memphis. He owns the school's single season record for completions and completion percentage, as well as the best career win/loss record as a quarterback in school history. Henigan has the most passing yards, completions, and passing touchdowns in school history as well. He's a 6-3 mobile pocket passer from Denton, Texas, that reminds me a lot of Daniel Jones. Someone who isn't exactly on the NFL Draft radar, but has the physical traits and resume to get attention. If Memphis comes to the Independence Bowl, and Henigan challenges Daniel Jones' I-Bowl records, he could suddenly be a gem in a really weak QB class in the NFL Draft.

The only true way to know the matchup with this year's game is to wait until after the Conference Championship games are done and the dust settles. When the Indy Bowl tells us who is coming to Shreveport, we will know. But lets hope its Army.