2020-21 College Bowl Games for Group of Five Schools

A total of 29 bowl games, including the College Football Playoff semi-finals and championship, are scheduled to take place beginning Dec. 21 with the Myrtle Beach Bowl and ending Jan. 11 with the College Football Playoff National Championship in Miami. Of the 29 bowls, 14 of the bowls will include at least one team from the Group of Five conferences.
The New Year’s Six spot for the Group of Five went to Cincinnati, who was the winners of the American Athletic Conference. The Bearcats will play Georgia in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day.
Two other bowl games will pit G5 schools against a Power Five school including C-USA champion UAB versus the SEC’s South Carolina in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl and AAC runner-up Tulsa versus another SEC school in Mississippi State in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl.
A couple of highlighted games include those that won their conferences.
Two Group of five champions in San Jose State from the Mountain West and Ball State from the MAC will meet in the Arizona Bowl.
Coastal Carolina, who was the co-champions of the Sun Belt will meet one-loss Liberty in the Cure Bowl. Those two schools were scheduled to meet in the regular season but Liberty had to cancel the game due to COVID-19 reasons.
The other Sun Belt co-champions of Louisiana will play the C-USA’s UTSA in the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl.
Sixteen bowl games (see list below) this year were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and 21 schools in total from all of the the FBS opted out or could not play due to COVID-19 breakouts for a bowl game this year including three from the G5 (Boise State, San Diego State, and SMU (was due to COVID-19).
Army, which was the first school to be selected for a bowl game, was left searching for a bowl game now as its bowl game (Independence Bowl) decided to cancel the game as the opponent for Army was set to be a Pac-12 school but that conference did not field enough schools due to schools opting out.
This year allowed teams that finished with losing records to be considered and three G5 teams (Houston, North Texas and Western Kentucky) will be playing in bowl games.
Below is the full list of bowl games for the 2020-21 bowl season involving Group of Five squads:
Dec. 21
Myrtle Beach Bowl
Appalachian State vs. North Texas
Brooks Stadium (Conway, South Carolina)
2:30 p.m. | ESPN
Dec. 22
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Nevada vs. Tulane
Albertsons Stadium (Boise, Idaho)
3:30 p.m. | ESPN
Boca Raton Bowl
UCF vs. BYU
FAU Stadium (Boca Raton, Florida)
7 p.m. | ESPN
Dec. 23
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
Louisiana Tech vs. Georgia Southern
Mercedes-Benz Superdome (New Orleans, Louisiana)
3 p.m. | ESPN
Montgomery Bowl
Memphis vs. FAU
Cramton Bowl (Montgomery, Alabama)
7 p.m. | ESPN
Dec. 24
New Mexico Bowl
Hawai’i vs. Houston
Toyota Stadium (Frisco, Texas)
3:30 p.m. | ESPN
Dec. 25
Camellia Bowl
Buffalo vs. Marshall
Cramton Bowl (Montgomery, Alabama)
2:30 p.m. | ESPN
Dec. 26
Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl
UAB vs. South Carolina
Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida)
12 p.m. | ABC
Cure Bowl
Coastal Carolina vs. Liberty
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida)
12 p.m. | ESPN
SERVPRO First Responder Bowl
Louisiana vs. UTSA
Gerald J. Ford Stadium (Dallas, Texas)
3:30 p.m. | ABC
LendingTree Bowl
Western Kentucky vs. Georgia State
Ladd-Peebles Stadium (Mobile, Alabama)
3:30 p.m. | ESPN
Dec. 31
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl
Tulsa vs. Mississippi State
Amon G. Carter Stadium (Fort Worth, Texas)
12 p.m. | ESPN
Arizona Bowl
San Jose State vs. Ball State
Arizona Stadium (Tucson, Arizona)
2 p.m. | CBSSN
Jan. 1
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl
Cincinnati vs. Georgia
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta, Georgia)
12 p.m. | ESPN
CANCELED BOWL GAMES
Below are the bowl games canceled due to COVID-19 reasons (either directly where the bowl is located or not having enough schools to fill the bowl slot) and shows the conference affiliations:
Birmingham Bowl
ACC vs. SEC
Frisco Bowl
SMU vs. UTSA
Guaranteed Rate Bowl
Big 12 vs. Pac-12
Bahamas Bowl
C-USA vs. MAC
Celebration Bowl
MEAC vs. SWAC
Fenway Bowl
AAC vs. ACC
Hawaii Bowl
AAC vs. Mountain West
Holiday Bowl
ACC vs. Pac-12
Independence Bowl
Army vs. TBD
Las Vegas Bowl
Pac-12 vs. SEC
Los Angeles Bowl
Pac-12 vs. Mountain West
Military Bowl
ACC vs. American
Pinstripe Bowl
ACC vs. Big Ten
Quick Lane Bowl
ACC, Big Ten, MAC
Redbox Bowl
Big Ten vs. Pac-12
Sun Bowl
ACC vs. Pac-12

Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
Reach him at this email or click below: