WVU back in Gator Bowl, will face Georgia Tech on New Year’s Day
West Virginia accepted an invitation Sunday as the Big East representative in the Toyota Gator Bowl on New Years Day at 1 p.m. The Mountaineers are ranked No. 12 and will face ACC representative Georgia Tech (9-4) who is ranked No. 25 and were the Coastal Division Champions of the ACC. “We’re very excited about returning to the Gator Bowl. Everything they do there is first class and it’s exciting for our great fans,” said West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez. “It’s always a great experience for our team because our seniors get to play one more game.”
The Gator Bowl usually matches the second-place Atlantic Coast Conference selection against a second-place Big East or a Big 12 Selection or Notre Dame. The payout for each team is $2.5 million. The game will be televised by CBS.
“West Virginia and Georgia Tech are among the greatest of football traditions in the nation,” said Scott P. Keith, Gator Bowl Chairman. “The Mountaineers and Yellow Jackets have had great seasons and we are looking forward to a truly exciting bowl match-up between two ranked teams.”
The game has been played at the 77,000-seat Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville since 1996. It is one of the oldest non-BCS bowls and has been played continuously since 1946. The 1955 Gator Bowl was the first-ever coast-to-coast telecast of a college bowl game.
“It will be a lot warmer there than it is here,” Rodriguez said. “Going to a bowl game is a great reward for our team.”
This is West Virginia’s 26th bowl appearance. The Mountaineers (10-2) defeated Georgia 38-35 in last year’s Nokia Sugar Bowl.
The Yellow Jackets (9-4) lost to Wake Forest 9-6 in the conference championship game on Saturday. Georgia Tech beat West Virginia in the previous two meetings between the schools including the 1997 Carquest Bowl (35-30).
West Virginia and Georgia Tech are regular attendees of the Gator Bowl. This will be the Mountaineers’ sixth Gator Bowl appearance and the third in four years, but they have yet to win there.
They last appeared in the Gator Bowl following the 2004 season and lost 30-18 to Florida State, which is coached by former West Virginia head coach Bobby Bowden (1970-1975).
It will mark the Yellow Jackets’ seventh Gator Bowl trip.
Saturday night’s thrilling triple-overtime win at home against Rutgers put WVU in second-place tie in the Big East with the Scarlet Knights, and the head-to-head victory gave them the tiebreaker edge. Louisville finished first and will be the conference’s BCS representative.
“Before the season we were talking about playing for a national championship, but things didn’t quite work out that way for us,” said senior linebacker Kevin “Boo” McLee, who is a Uniontown graduate. “We’re disappointed about not going to the BCS Bowl, but we still have some things to play for this year, so we’ll work hard and try our best to go out as winners.”