The Sun Belt Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The 12 member institutions of the Sun Belt are distributed primarily across the southern United States.
The Silicon Valley Football Classic (SVFC), sometimes referred to as the Silicon Valley Bowl or Silicon Valley Classic, was an NCAA-certified Division I-A post-season college football bowl game that was played at Spartan Stadium on the South Campus of San Jose State University in San Jose, California, from 2000 to 2004. It had a contractual tie-in with the Western Athletic Conference and the Pac-10. The bowl was initially televised on Fox Sports Net and later moved to ESPN2.
Florida Atlantic Owls football program represents Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in the sport of American football. The Owls compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the East Division of Conference USA (CUSA). The Owls' head coach is Lane Kiffin. Florida Atlantic has produced a Sun Belt Conference co-championship team in 2007, a Conference USA championship in 2017, along with 3 postseason bowl appearances and one appearance in the 2003 I-AA Playoffs. The Owls play their home games at FAU Stadium which has a seating capacity of 29,419.
The Appalachian State Mountaineers football team is the college football team at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. The Mountaineers have competed in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Sun Belt Conference since 2014. Appalachian plays its home games in Kidd Brewer Stadium, named after former head coach Kidd Brewer, whose 1937 squad was unbeaten and unscored upon during the regular season.
The South Alabama Jaguars football program, established in 2009, represents the University of South Alabama in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, of which it became a member in 2012.
The Arkansas State Red Wolves football team represents Arkansas State University in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football competition. The team was founded in 1911, and, since 2001, Arkansas State has competed as a member of the Sun Belt Conference. Their home field is Centennial Bank Stadium, on campus in Jonesboro, and the current head coach is Blake Anderson.
The Gasparilla Bowl is an annual NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game played in the Tampa Bay Area. It was first played in 2008 as the St. Petersburg Bowl at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. The game was renamed the Gasparilla Bowl in 2017 as a nod to the legend of José Gaspar, a mythical pirate who supposedly operated in the Tampa Bay area and who is the inspiration for Tampa's Gasparilla Pirate Festival. In May 2018, the owners announced the bowl would be relocated to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.
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The UT Arlington Mavericks are the athletic teams that represent the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas. The Mavericks currently compete in the NCAA Division I Sun Belt Conference in 15 varsity sports. The number rose to 15 in the fall of 2017 as the University announced women's golf will begin their first season of competition.
The Cure Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in December of each year at Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Florida. The Cure Bowl is so named to promote awareness and research of breast cancer, with proceeds going to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. In its inaugural game in 2015 until the 2018 game, the game was sponsored by AutoNation and officially known as the AutoNation Cure Bowl. As of 2019, AutoNation has dropped their sponsorship and it now known simply as the Cure Bowl.
The FIU Panthers are the athletic teams representing Florida International University, an American public university located in Miami. The Panthers currently compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletics as members of Conference USA.
The College Football Playoff National Championship is a post-season college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which began play in the 2014 college football season. The game serves as the final of the College Football Playoff, a bracket tournament between the top four teams in the country as determined by a selection committee, which was established as a successor to the Bowl Championship Series and its similar BCS National Championship Game. Unlike the BCS championship, the participating teams in the College Football Playoff National Championship are determined by two semi-final bowls—hosted by two of the consortium's six member bowls yearly—and the top two teams as determined by the selection committee do not automatically advance to the game in lieu of other bowls. This has caused a unique side effect in that, since the inception of the playoff, no #1 or #3 seed has won the National Championship.
The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns football program is a college football team that represents the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the Sun Belt Conference. Between 2011 and 2014, the Cajuns won four consecutive New Orleans Bowls, representing the most successful stretch in the program's history, but later had to vacate two of the victories due to NCAA violations.
The Arizona Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that began play in the 2015 season. The game, which is held at Arizona Stadium in Tucson, is played between bowl-eligible teams from the Mountain West Conference and Sun Belt Conference. Since its inception, it had been sponsored by Nova Home Loans and officially known as the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl.
The Sun Belt Conference Football Championship Game is an annual college football game that determines the Sun Belt Conference's season champion. The game is played between the Sun Belt's regular season divisional champions from the East and West divisions. First contested in 2018, the game will be typically played on the first Saturday of December. The current champions are the Appalachian State Mountaineers of the East Division.
The Myrtle Beach Bowl is a planned NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football bowl game to be played in Conway, South Carolina, and owned by ESPN Events. The college leagues that have tie-ins with the bowl are Conference USA, Mid-American Conference and Sun Belt Conference. The affiliation contract with ESPN Events has each conference supplying a team four times in a six-year bowl cycle from 2020 to 2025. Coastal Carolina University will host the game at its Brooks Stadium, which will feature a new capacity of 20,000 seats following an expansion project scheduled to be complete prior to the 2019 season.
The Austin Bowl is a proposed NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football bowl game to be played in Austin, Texas at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium. The college conferences that would have tie-ins with the bowl are the American Athletic Conference and the Sun Belt Conference.
