Senior Bowl - Background

Background

Two teams, representing the North and the South, are coached by select coaching staff from two NFL teams.

The week-long practice that precedes the game is attended by key NFL personnel (including coaches, general managers, and scouts), who oversee the players as possible prospects for pro football. At one point the Senior Bowl was the first chance its participants had to openly receive pay for participation in an athletic event. This was one reason that participation was limited to seniors whose eligibility for further participation in collegiate football had expired, and the game was also their first exposure to the slightly different professional rules. Players who wished to participate in collegiate spring sports had to avoid participation in the Senior Bowl. The significance of all of this has waned in recent years as there has been some lessening of the former strict separation of professional and amateur athletes.

Its scheduling has varied even though since 1967 it has been traditionally set for the week before the NFL's Super Bowl (which itself is now played in February). It is usually established as the final game of the season, but for a period during the 1980s and 1990s, it was the next-to-the-last game (followed the following week by either the Hula Bowl or the now dormant Gridiron Classic). The 2008 Senior Bowl was played as the college football season's penultimate game on January 26, followed by the Texas vs. The Nation Game February 1. The 2010 game was played on January 30.

The single-season record for number of players sent to the Senior Bowl from one school is ten players by Alabama in 1987, followed by nine players sent by Auburn in 1988 and Southern California in 2008.