Greensboro, NC – Led by league champion Clemson’s seventh appearance in the Capital One Orange Bowl, the ACC placed nine teams in college football postseason games. This is the 22nd consecutive season in which the ACC earned at least six bowl bids. Not including the pandemic-affected 2020 season, the ACC has sent at least nine teams to a bowl every year since 2016. Since 2013, the ACC is second among all conferences with 100 postseason appearances.
2022 ACC BOWL LINEUP
Saturday, Dec. 17, Time, TV, SiriusXM, App/Web
Wasabi Fenway Bowl, 11 a.m., ESPN, 109 or 193, 955
Cincinnati (9-3) vs. Louisville (7-5)
Series: Cincinnati leads series, 30-22-1; Last meeting: Louisville, 31-24 (2013)
ESPN: Chris Cotter (play-by-play), Mark Herzlich (analyst), Kelsey Riggs (sideline)
Friday, Dec. 23, Time, TV, SiriusXM, App/Web
Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl, 6:30 p.m., ESPN, 136 or 193, 955
Wake Forest (7-5) vs. Missouri (6-6)
Series: First meeting
ESPN: Chris Cotter (play-by-play), Mark Herzlich (analyst), Lericia Harris (sideline)
Wednesday, Dec. 28, Time, TV, SiriusXM, App/Web
Military Bowl Presented by Peraton, 2 p.m., ESPN, 136 or 193, 955
UCF (9-4) vs. Duke (8-4)
Series: First meeting
ESPN: Kevin Brown (play-by-play), Hutson Mason (analyst), Marilyn Payne (sideline)
San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl, 8 p.m., FOX, 136 or 193, 955
No. 15 Oregon (9-3) vs. North Carolina (9-4)
Series: First meeting
FOX: Gus Johnson (play-by-play), Joel Klatt (analyst)
Thursday, Dec. 29, Time, TV, SiriusXM, App/Web
Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, 2 p.m., ESPN, 135 or 193, 955
Syracuse (7-5) vs. Minnesota (8-4),
Series: Minnesota leads series, 3-2; Last meeting: Syracuse, 21-17 (2013)
ESPN: Wes Durham (play-by-play), Roddy Jones (analyst), Taylor Davis (sideline)
Cheez-It Bowl, 5:30 p.m., ESPN, 135 or 193, 955
Oklahoma (6-6) vs. No. 13 Florida State (9-3)
Series: Oklahoma leads series, 6-1; Last meeting: Oklahoma, 23-13 (2011)
ESPN: Bob Wischusen (play-by-play), Dan Orlovsky (analyst), Kris Budden (sideline)
Friday, Dec. 30, Time, TV, SiriusXM, App/Web
Duke’s Mayo Bowl, Noon, ESPN, 137 or 193, 955
Maryland (7-5) vs. No. 23 NC State (8-4)
Series: Tied, 33-33-4; Last meeting: Maryland, 42-21 (2013)
ESPN: Anish Shroff (play-by-play), Brock Osweiler (analyst), Andraya Carter (sideline)
Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, 2 p.m., CBS, 134 or 194, 956
Pitt (8-4) vs. No. 18 UCLA (9-3)
Series: UCLA leads series, 9-5; Last meeting: UCLA, 38-28 (1972)
CBS: Brad Nessler (play-by-play), Gary Danielson (analyst), Jenny Dell (sideline)
Capital One Orange Bowl , 8 p.m., ESPN, 84, 84
No. 7 Clemson (11-2) vs. No. 6 Tennessee (10-2)
Series: Tennessee leads, 11-6-2; Last meeting: Clemson, 27-14 (2004)
ESPN: Joe Tessitore (play-by-play), Greg McElroy (analyst), Katie George (sideline)
ACC Notes
Clemson (11-2), which earned a No. 7 CFP national ranking following its 39-10 win over North Carolina in the Subway ACC Football Championship Game, will face No. 6 Tennessee (10-2) on Friday, Dec. 30, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida (8 p.m., ESPN).
Clemson will be making a bowl appearance for the 18th consecutive year, adding to its current school record that began in 2005. It is the current longest active streak among ACC teams and the fifth-longest in the nation. In total, it will be Clemson’s 49th bowl appearance, with the Tigers holding a 26-22 record in bowl play.
The Wasabi Fenway Bowl will kick off ACC Bowl Season with a matchup of Louisville (7-5) vs. Cincinnati (9-3) on Dec. 17 at 11 a.m. on ESPN. It will be the 19th different bowl game for Louisville. The Fenway Bowl will be the 11th game that the Cardinals have played in a Major League Baseball stadium. The teams will play for the Keg of Nails, a traveling trophy awarded to the winner of the Louisville-Cincinnati game since 1929. The exchange between the universities of two cities connected by Interstate 71, is believed to have been initiated by the universities’ fraternity chapters, signifying that the winning players in the game were “tough as nails.”
Wake Forest will make its first appearance in the Gasparilla Bowl when it takes on Missouri (6-6) on Dec. 23 at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN. Overall, this will mark Wake Forest’s fifth bowl experience in Florida and its second-straight as the Deacs defeated Rutgers in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl a season ago. The Deacons will face Missouri for the first time as it makes its school-record seventh consecutive bowl appearance under head coach Dave Clawson and its 17th overall postseason trip.
Duke, under ACC Coach of the Year Mike Elko, is headed to the Military Bowl Presented by Peraton where it will face UCF on Dec. 28 at 2 p.m. on ESPN. The Blue Devils have wins in each of their last three postseason contests. Elko has participated in eight previous bowl games as a defensive coordinator, helping Bowling Green (0-3), Wake Forest (1-0), Notre Dame (1-0) and Texas A&M (3-0) to a combined 5-3 record. The Blue Devils will face UCF for the first time.
ACC Coastal Division Champion North Carolina (9-4) will be making its 37th bowl appearance when it takes on Oregon (9-3) on Dec. 28 at 8 p.m. on FOX. This will be the 26th bowl game for head coach Mack Brown, who owns a 15-10 record in postseason games. The Tar Heels will appear in a bowl game for the fourth year in a row but in the Holiday Bowl for the first time. Oregon is currently ranked 15th in the College Football Playoff poll, 14th in the Coaches Poll and 15th in the AP Poll. This will be the first game between the Tar Heels and the Ducks.
The Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium features Syracuse (7-5) vs. Minnesota (8-4) on Dec. 29 at 2 p.m. This will be Syracuse’s 27th all-time bowl game. The program’s .635 postseason winning percentage (16-9-1) is the sixth-best in the FBS among teams with 15-or-more bowl games played. This year’s Pinstripe Bowl will be a rematch of the 2013 Texas Bowl, where the Orange came away with a 21-17 win. The Orange are 2-3 versus Minnesota all time.
Florida State (9-3) will make its 49th overall bowl trip when it faces Oklahoma (6-6) on Dec. 29 in the Cheez-It Bowl at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN. The Seminoles are 3-0 in the Cheez-It Bowl, tied for the most wins in bowl history. The Cheez-It Bowl will be the fifth postseason matchup between Florida State and Oklahoma, with FSU winning the Gator Bowl on Jan. 2, 1965, and Oklahoma earning wins in the Orange Bowl following the 1979, 1980 and 2000 seasons. FSU is 6-4 in bowl games against current Big 12 teams.
NC State (8-4) faces Maryland (7-5) on Dec. 30 in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte at noon on ESPN. The overall series record between NC State and Maryland stands exactly even at 33-33-4. The Wolfpack and the Terps met every year on the gridiron from 1956 until Maryland’s departure from the ACC following the 2013 season. This is NC State’s 34th bowl appearance (17-15-1) and will mark the fourth time the Wolfpack has played a bowl game in Bank of America Stadium. The Wolfpack won the 2005 Meineke Car Care Bowl and the 2011 Belk Bowl and lost the 2015 Belk Bowl.
Pitt (8-4), which won four straight games to close the regular season, heads to El Paso, Texas, for the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl and will face No. 18 UCLA (9-3) at 2 p.m. on CBS. Pitt is 2-2 in four prior trips to the Sun Bowl. In previous games in El Paso, the Panthers defeated Kansas (33-19 in 1975) and Texas A&M (31-28 in 1989) before falling to Oregon State (3-0 in 2008) and Stanford (14-13 in 2018) in the second-oldest bowl game in all of college football, behind only the Rose Bowl. This year will mark the 15th all-time meeting between Pitt and UCLA, but the first since 1972.
The ACC, which plays arguably the most difficult non-conference schedule in the country every season, had the second-most non-conference wins of any conference through the end of the regular season.
The ACC has nine bowl eligible teams, which ties for second among all conferences.
The ACC Atlantic Division has six teams with a winning record, which is more than any other division in the country.
The ACC has 43 wins against teams with a .500 record-or-better, which ranks second among all Power 5 conferences.
The ACC has the best non-conference opponents record (by win total) of any Power 5 conference.
ACC defenses have played well this year ranking:
• First in sacks
• First in tackles for loss
• First in turnovers gained
• First in turnover margin
• Second in total defense
Twenty-three of the ACC’s 56 conference games this season were decided by 7 points or fewer.