Quick Lane Bowl
| Quick Lane Bowl | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Stadium | Ford Field |
| Location | Detroit, Michigan |
| Operated | 2014–present |
| Conference tie-ins | Big Ten & ACC |
| Payout | US$1,200,000 |
| Preceded by | Little Caesars Pizza Bowl |
| Sponsors | |
|
Ford Motor Company (2014–present)
|
|
| 2016 matchup | |
| Maryland vs. Boston College (BC 36–30) | |
| 2017 matchup | |
| TBD (December 26, 2017) | |
The Quick Lane Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that began play in the 2014 season. Backed by the Detroit Lions of the National Football League, the game features a bowl-eligible team from the Big Ten Conference competing against an opponent from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Quick Lane Bowl is played at Ford Field in Detroit as a de facto replacement for the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, and inherited its traditional December 26 scheduling. Unlike its predecessor, which placed the 8th place team in the Big Ten against the Mid-American champion, the competing teams are selected by conference representatives and not based on final rankings. The Ford Motor Company serves as title sponsor of the game through its auto shop brand Quick Lane.
The inaugural game between the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and North Carolina Tar Heels was played on December 26, 2014, marking the first time the two teams had ever played each other in a bowl game.
Since 2002, Detroit's Ford Field had played host to the Motor City Bowl—later known as the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl for sponsorship reasons; a bowl game between the 8th placed team in the Big Ten Conference and the champion of the Mid-American Conference which was first played in 1997 at the Pontiac Silverdome. In May 2013, ESPN reported that the Detroit Lions were planning to organize a new Big Ten bowl game at Ford Field against an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) opponent—Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany had expressed a desire to revamp the conference's lineup of bowl games for the 2014 season to keep them "fresh". In August 2013, the Lions officially confirmed the new, then-unnamed game, tentatively scheduled for December 30, 2014. The team had reached six-year deals with the Big Ten and ACC to provide tie-ins for the game; the teams playing in the bowl are to be picked by representatives from each participating conference.
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