Certified by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the game featured teams from Division I-A (later known as the Football Bowl Subdivision).

The Aloha Bowl was established in 1982 by Mackay Yanagisawa, a sportsman from Oahu.

In 1998 and 1999, the Aloha Bowl was part of a doubleheader followed by the Oahu Bowl; the 1998 event was the first televised doubleheader in American college football history.

San Francisco later received a bowl game, first played in December 2002 as the San Francisco Bowl, which later operated under several other names.

Maryland (0–1) North Carolina (0–1) Wake Forest (1–0) Colorado (1–0) Kansas State (0–1) Notre Dame (0–1) Penn State (1–0) Syracuse (1–0) Fresno State (0–1) Hawaii (0–1) Florida (0–1) Houston (0–1) *Note: Table based on conference affiliation at the time the game was played and may not represent current conference alignment.