Big Ten Bowl Affiliations Announced for 2020 and Beyond

The Husker football team hasn’t qualified for a bowl game for the past two seasons, so you can be forgiven if you have forgotten (or quit caring) about the Big Ten bowl affiliations.

Today, the Big Ten unveiled 11 different bowl partners starting with the 2020 college football season. These will include opponents from the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC, and MAC and will be located in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina and Tennessee. These affiliations are in addition to any College Football Playoff slots the B1G managed to win.

The new partnerships include the Belk Bowl (Faux Pelini will be thrilled!) and the Las Vegas Bowl. The conference returns to Phoenix for the first time since the 2013 postseason with the addition of the Cheez-It Bowl.

Gone will be the Armed Forces Bowl (Fort Worth, TX), First Responder Bowl (Dallas, TX), Holiday Bowl (San Diego, CA) and Gator Bowl (Jacksonville, FL). Note: I was looking at the B1G bowls after the 2018 season and couldn’t find a definitive list of bowls post-2019. If you find different information, let me know in the comments.

The Big Ten’s future bowl lineup consists of the following postseason games:

• Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual (Pasadena, Calif.)
• Capital One Orange Bowl (Miami)
• Citrus Bowl (Orlando, Fla.)
• Outback Bowl (Tampa, Fla.)
• Las Vegas Bowl (Las Vegas)
• Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl (Nashville, Tenn.)
• New Era Pinstripe Bowl (Bronx, N.Y.)
• Belk Bowl (Charlotte, N.C.)
• Cheez-It Bowl (Phoenix)
• Redbox Bowl (Santa Clara, Calif.)
• Quick Lane Bowl (Detroit, Mich.)

This deal includes six-year bowl extensions with the Citrus, Music City, Outback, Quick Lane and Redbox Bowls and six-year agreements with the Belk, Cheez-It and Las Vegas Bowls. The Big Ten’s current agreement with the Pinstripe Bowl, which runs through 2021, has also been extended through 2025. The Big Ten previously announced a 12-year extension to face a Pac-12 team in the Rose Bowl Game through the 2025 campaign and an agreement with the Orange Bowl to send a Big Ten team to face an ACC representative at least three times following the 2014-25 seasons.

Big Ten schools will also look to secure berths in the College Football Playoff, with semifinals rotating between the Rose, Orange, Goodyear Cotton (Arlington, Texas), PlayStation Fiesta (Glendale, Ariz.), Chick-fil-A Peach (Atlanta, Ga.), and Allstate Sugar (New Orleans, La.) Bowls.

The Big Ten’s 2020-25 bowl lineup will also feature the same selection process that has been used since 2014. Each bowl partner will work with the Big Ten to create the best possible matchup based upon an agreed set of parameters, with final approval by the conference office for all team selections. The Citrus, Outback, Music City, New Era Pinstripe, Cheez-It, Redbox and Quick Lane Bowls will feature a Big Ten team in each year of the agreement, while the Las Vegas and Belk Bowls will rotate annually and each feature three teams over the six-year agreement.

Which of these bowls/stadiums have you visited? What are some of your best (or not) memories from them?