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The Motor City Bowl is a major post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that has been played annually since 1997. The first five games (1997-2001) were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. Starting in 2002, the game was moved to 65,000-seat Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. The game features a team from the Mid-American Conference playing one from the Big Ten Conference. If the Big Ten does not have an eligible team, the game will feature a team from the Big East that meets the requirement of at least seven wins; otherwise, an at-large team is chosen. The game is jointly sponsored by the "Big Three" automakers in Detroit: Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler.
The Motor City Bowl marked the first bowl game held in the Detroit area since the Cherry Bowl in 1984-1985.
The 2006 installment, played December 26, 2006 on ESPN, matched up Central Michigan University and Middle Tennessee, because the Big Ten could not fulfill their bowl requirement. The game set a new Motor City Bowl attendance record of 54,113.
[edit] Bowl matchups and results
| Date |
Winning Team |
Losing Team |
| December 26, 1997 |
Mississippi |
34 |
Marshall |
31 |
| December 23, 1998 |
Marshall |
48 |
Louisville |
29 |
| December 27, 1999 |
Marshall |
21 |
BYU |
3 |
| December 27, 2000 |
Marshall |
25 |
Cincinnati |
14 |
| December 29, 2001 |
Toledo |
23 |
Cincinnati |
16 |
| December 26, 2002 |
Boston College |
51 |
Toledo |
25 |
| December 26, 2003 |
Bowling Green |
28 |
Northwestern |
24 |
| December 27, 2004 [2] |
Connecticut |
39 |
Toledo |
10 |
| December 26, 2005 [3] |
Memphis |
38 |
Akron |
31 |
| December 26, 2006 [4] |
Central Michigan |
31 |
Middle Tennessee |
14 |
[edit] Most appearances
[edit] See also
List of college bowl games
[edit] External links
- ^ If the Big Ten does not have enough bowl-eligible teams, a team from the Big East fills in.
- ^ Connecticut received the bid to play in this game as the Big Ten did not field enough teams to qualify for this game.
- ^ Memphis replaced the Big Ten and Big East teams as they did not have enough teams to qualify for this game.
- ^ The Big Ten did not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fulfill their obligation to qualify for this game, so Middle Tennessee filled the Big Ten's spot.
