Way Too Early Projections For The 2025 Independence Bowl

Does it make sense to project the teams that will play in Shreveport's college bowl, the Independence Bowl, after just 3 complete weeks of the season? Absolutely not. Is it fun? For sure.

So lets do the unreasonable thing, and project what teams we might see in Shreveport this year.

When Is The Independence Bowl This Year?

This year's Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl will be held on Tuesday, December 20th, 2025. The game will be played in the same place it always is, Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The 2025 Independence Bowl will kick off at 12pm local time.

What Conferences Are Tied In To The 2025 Independence Bowl?

This year's Indy Bowl is set to have a representative from the Big 12 take on a team from Conference USA. But there are some additional options.

This will be the last year for a wild "conference realignment" tie in for the Indy Bowl. Former Pac 12 teams will be eligible for participation in the game too. This includes Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, California, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, and Washington.

The American Athletic Conference is also in the Indy Bowl rotation, and could end up sending a team if needed.

There's another backup plan conference too. The Indy Bowl has an agreement with the Sun Belt Conference to fill a spot if there aren't enough teams available from all of the above options.

Sometimes conferences can't fulfill all of their bowl obligations due to teams getting added to the College Football Playoffs, which removes them from the rotation of agreements. Then if there aren't enough bowl eligible teams remaining, they can't fill their slots. In order to be bowl eligible, you have to have 6 wins against standard opponents.

What Teams Are Predicted To Play In The 2025 Independence Bowl?

We're not the only ones thinking about this when it's only Week 4 of the college football season. College Football News has put out some Independence Bowl predictions already. According to their current prediction, the game will see Memphis Tigers vs Kansas Jayhawks.

Memphis would be representing the American Conference, so they're predicting some issues with the tie-ins. They currently have a 3-0 record, so they are already halfway to being bowl eligible.

Kansas would represent the Big 12 Conference, who does have a tie-in to the Indy Bowl. The Jayhawks are 2-1 on the season, meaning they need to get 4 wins in their next 9 games.

They're not the only ones with predictions though.

ESPN has actually put out some predictions as well. Writers Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach have both made picks for their predictions after week 3. Here's what they have:

Bonagura picks Baylor vs. Louisiana, while Schlabach takes Houston vs. Jacksonville State.

While those picks sound fun, the College Football News matchup of Memphis and Kansas feels like its more fun, and a better matchup for Shreveport. So since none of this matters right now, because we're only 3 weeks into season, lets go with that one for now.