By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — Get your favorite guacamole recipe polished up. Appalachian State will face Miami (OH) on Dec. 16 in the Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl, in FBC Mortgage Stadium on the campus of the University of Central Florida.
More than any other FBS conference, the Sun Belt Conference has an astonishing 12 out of 14 teams going to college football bowl games in 2023, including all six teams in the SBC East division.
The entire Sun Belt lineup:
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- Dec. 16 – Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl: Appalachian State vs. Miami (OH)
- Dec. 16 – Myrtle Beach Bowl: Georgia Southern vs. Ohio
- Dec. 16 – R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: Louisiana vs. Jacksonville State
- Dec. 18 – Famous Toastery Bowl: Old Dominion vs. Western Kentucky
- Dec. 19 – Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl: Marshall vs. UTSA
- Dec. 23 – 76 Birmingham Bowl: Troy vs. Duke
- Dec. 23 – Camellia Bowl: Arkansas State vs. Northern Illinois
- Dec. 23 – Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: James Madison vs. Air Force
- Dec. 23 – Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Georgia State vs. Utah State
- Dec. 23 – 68 Ventures Bowl: South Alabama vs. Eastern Michigan
- Dec. 23 – EasyPost Hawaii Bowl: Coastal Carolina vs. San Jose State
- Dec. 26 – SERVPRO First Responder Bowl: Texas State vs. Rice
Orlando is a great destination for the App State football team and our passionate Mountaineer fan base.
For App State, it will be the program’s first meeting with the Redhawks of Miami (OH), this year’s MidAmerica Conference champion after defeating Toledo, 23-14.
“Orlando is a great destination for the App State football team and our passionate Mountaineer fan base,” App State Director of Athletics Doug Gillin said. “Thank you to Alan Gooch and his team for the invitation. We are thrilled to represent Appalachian State University and the Sun Belt Conference in the Cure Bowl.”
“We are excited to play in the Cure Bowl against Miami (OH),” App State head coach Shawn Clark said. “Our team kept digging all season. We have battled through adversity, and we won the Sun Belt East division. We will be proud to travel to Orlando and represent our university and one of the best conferences in America (the Sun Belt).”
The inaugural Cure Bowl was held in 2015, and the game shines a spotlight on the fight against breast cancer. By the time the 2022 game was complete, the Orlando Sports Foundation had donated more than $4.1 million to cancer research.
A dozen teams competing in college bowl games is not only a Sun Belt Conference record but also a national best in 2023 among the ten NCAA Division I FBS conferences. The SBC’s 12 outpaces the ACC (11), the Big Ten (9), the Big 12 (9), the SEC (9), and the Pac-12 (8). None of the other non-autonomy conferences has more than seven bowl qualified schools representing them in bowl games this year, including the Mountain West (7), the AAC (6), the MAC (6), and C-USA (4).
