Where and who will CCU play in its bowl game? This is what the latest projections say
With its second consecutive 10-win season achieved, where will Coastal Carolina seek the program’s first bowl win?
The Chanticleers await their bowl invitation, which should come this week and is expected to be announced on Sunday along with most of the Football Bowl Subdivision bowl matchups.
The Chants will likely be limited to bowls that are contractually affiliated with the Sun Belt Conference.
The Sun Belt is guaranteed a minimum of five spots in postseason bowls, and there is a selection process for the games.
The conference only has four teams that are bowl-eligible, however, with a minimum of six wins: Louisiana (11-1), Appalachian State (10-2), CCU (10-2) and Georgia State (7-5). AP No. 20 Louisiana and App State play in the conference championship game Saturday.
South Alabama (5-7) and Troy (5-7), which fired third-year head coach Chip Lindsey on Nov. 21, fell shy of bowl eligibility with losses this past week to Coastal and Georgia State, respectively.
The Sun Belt’s bowl tie-ins
According to the conference, it has affiliations with a pair of bowl games on Dec. 18 that will be broadcast on ESPN — the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl and the LendingTree Bowl in Mobile, Alabama.
The New Orleans Bowl has a primary tie-in with Conference USA (C-USA) for the opponent and the LendingTree Bowl is tied to the Mid-American Conference (MAC).
The Sun Belt-associated bowls have a pecking order, and the New Orleans Bowl is slated to have the second pick of Sun Belt teams and the LendingTree Bowl has the fifth pick.
The Sun Belt also has an agreement with ESPN Events to place teams in up to three of the bowls it operates, and it has the first, third and fourth choices of Sun Belt teams, according to ESPN Events through ESPN senior director of communications Bill Hofheimer.
Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said Monday that the three ESPN Events bowls the conference is contracted to are the Cure Bowl in Orlando, Fla. on Dec. 17 that will be televised on ESPN2, second-year Myrtle Beach Bowl on Dec. 20 on ESPN, and Camellia Bowl on Christmas Day in Montgomery, Ala. on ESPN.
Last year, Coastal fell to Liberty 37-34 in overtime in the Cure Bowl at Camping World Stadium in Orlando following an 11-0 regular season.
But ESPN Events and the conference have the option of moving Sun Belt teams to other bowls.
According to the conference, those are the RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl in Florida on Dec. 18, Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl in Texas on Dec. 21, SERVPRO First Responder Bowl in Dallas on Dec. 28, New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque on Dec. 18, and Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise on Dec. 21.
“Safe to say they won’t be in New Mexico or Boise. Everything else is on the table,” Hofheimer said.
“There are a whole host of (several) other bowls . . . that we can actually access as well if those matchups make the most sense,” Gill said. “So we’ve got those five primary, then there are other bowls that we can certainly move into if we obviously give up one of the spots in those other primary bowls.”
With the program’s newfound national notoriety over the past couple years, CCU coach Jamey Chadwell believes the Chants are an attractive team for bowl operators, and said the team isn’t particularly persnickety about its selection.
“We’d be thankful to play in any bowl game,” Chadwell said. “This will be our second bowl game that we’ve ever played in so we’re not going to be picky, we’ll be happy wherever we go, I know our team will be. Now if you ask our team what their choices would be, I’m sure Myrtle Beach wouldn’t be the top one just because we live here.
“But I know our fans travel well, I know when we’re on TV we bring a lot of people to watch those games from a TV standpoint. . . . Wherever it is we’ll be ready to go.”
Bowl projections for CCU
Several media outlets have projected bowl matchups in the past week. Many predict the Chants will remain home for the Myrtle Beach Bowl.
Perhaps the most appealing projected opponent for the Chants is Western Kentucky (8-4), which is 7-1 in C-USA, is riding a seven-game win streak following a 53-21 win over Marshall on Saturday, and will face UTSA (11-1) in Friday’s C-USA championship game.
ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura has CCU facing the Hilltoppers in the New Orleans Bowl, while Athlon Sports projects CCU will face them in the Boca Raton Bowl.
Among those projecting CCU will play at Brooks Stadium:
Sports Illustrated has CCU facing Miami of Ohio (6-6) of the MAC; both College Football News and ESPN’s Mark Schlabach have CCU playing soon-to-be fellow Sun Belt member Old Dominion (6-6) of C-USA; Pro Football Network, 247Sports and Jerry Palm of CBS Sports have CCU playing FBS Independent Army (8-3), which has four straight wins and plays Navy on Saturday; and Brett McMurphy of The Action Network has CCU playing Central Michigan (8-4) of the MAC, which has won four straight and six of seven.
The Chants’ bowl experience
The Myrtle Beach Bowl will be played at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 20 at CCU’s Brooks Stadium in Conway. It has tie-ins with the Sun Belt, MAC and C-USA, and App State crushed an overmatched North Texas 56-28 in the inaugural game last December.
While several CCU players have echoed Chadwell’s sentiment that they’ll be happy with any bowl invitation, some have mentioned an aversion to playing in their own stadium and not being able to enjoy the full bowl-game experience on the road.
“I’d love to play here again, but of course everybody wants to go somewhere else so we can just get a different experience, another city and just live a little more life together one of these last moments,” super senior defensive lineman C.J. Brewer said.
The Sun Belt has won 69 percent of its bowl games over the past five seasons — including four of five in 2020 — to lead all FBS conferences.
“We have been talking through some options with all of our bowl partners and certainly with ESPN, so we do have some ideas of some things that might happen that I certainly can’t share with you right now,” Gill said Monday. “Those things are still fluid just because they’re impacted by outcomes not just in our games but across the country.”
CCU’s likely bowl possibilities
Two Sun Belt contracted bowls
• Saturday, Dec. 18 — LendingTree Bowl (Mobile, Ala.) | 4:45 p.m. | ESPN
• Saturday, Dec. 18 — R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl (New Orleans, La.) | 8:15 p.m. | ESPN
ESPN Events bowls with Sun Belt agreements
• Friday, Dec. 17 — Cure Bowl (Orlando, Fla.) | 5 p.m. | ESPN2
• Monday, Dec. 20 — Myrtle Beach Bowl (Conway, S.C.) | 1:30 p.m. | ESPN
• Saturday, Dec. 25 — Camellia Bowl (Montgomery, Ala.) | 1:30 p.m. | ESPN
Other ESPN Events bowls that can be substituted
• Saturday, Dec. 18 — RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl (Boca Raton, Fla.) | 10 a.m. | ESPN
• Tuesday, Dec. 21 — Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl (Frisco, Texas) | 6:30 p.m. | ESPN
• Tuesday, Dec. 28 — SERVPRO First Responder Bowl (Dallas, Texas) | 2:15 p.m. | ESPN
This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
