Citing distance concerns and the availability for friends and family to attend the game, the University of Missouri football program has decided to accept a bid to the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee, where the Tigers will take on the 6-2 Iowa Hawkeyes on Wednesday, December 30th at 3 o’clock at Nissan Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Titans.
Missouri, according to various reports, had been considering invitations from the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida and the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, both January 2nd games, but made the decision on Nashville, a much shorter commute from the MU campus in Columbia. The game between the Hawkeyes will be televised on ESPN, and carried live on KTTN FM 92.3, with pregame at 1 o’clock.
As of mid-week, Iowa remains set on playing in the Music City Bowl, although a bout of COVID-19 has shuttered the Hawkeyes football program through the weekend, as a number of players and staff, including 65-year old head coach Kirk Ferentz, have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Missouri will be one of numerous SEC teams going bowling over the holidays. The SEC champion Alabama Crimson Tide will play Notre Dame in a national semifinal game in the Rose Bowl, moved this year from Pasadena, California to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on New Year’s Day.
The Citrus Bowl had the next selection of remaining SEC teams and chose 6-4 Auburn to play the Big 10 runner-up Northwestern Wildcats. In a very different year in college football, the SEC mixed up its bowl berth rules, allowing, from that point, schools with the highest-winning percentage to pick their bowl game of choice. Missouri, at 5-5, went with Music City, with Ole Miss going to the Outback Bowl to play Indiana, Kentucky traveling to the Gator Bowl for a meeting with North Carolina State, Arkansas playing TCU in the Texas Bowl in Houston on New Year’s Eve, Mississippi State playing #24 Tulsa at the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth on New Year’s Eve. Tennessee was to play West Virginia in the Liberty Bowl, but was replaced by Army due to COVID-19 issues with the Volunteers. Likewise, South Carolina had to bow out of the Gasparilla Bowl against UAB, cancelling the game slated for December 26th in Tampa, Florida. LSU was not eligible to participate in a bowl game in 2020, the result of a self-imposed postseason ban for this year for the 5-5 Tigers.
