Little Caesars Pizza Bowl

Little Caesars Pizza Bowl
(formerly Motor City Bowl)
Stadium	Ford Field
Location	Detroit, Michigan
Previous stadiums	Pontiac Silverdome (1997–2001)
Previous locations	Pontiac, Michigan (1997–2001)
Operated	1997–present
Conference tie-ins	Big Ten, MAC Sun Belt (alternate)
Payout	US$750,000 (600,000 Minimum) per team
Sponsors
Little Caesars, Ford[1]
Former names
Motor City Bowl (1998–2008) Ford Motor City Bowl (1997)
2010 matchup
FIU vs. Toledo (FIU 34-32)
2011 matchup
(December 27, 2011)

The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (known as the Motor City Bowl until 2009) is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that has been played annually since 1997. The first five games (1997–2001) were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. Starting in 2002, the game was moved to 65,000-seat Ford Field in downtown Detroit, Michigan. Ford Field is home to the NFL's Detroit Lions, and played host to Super Bowl XL.

The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl features a bowl-eligible team from the Mid-American Conference (usually the winner of the MAC Championship Game, although that team is not required to accept the bid; prior to the formation of the bowl the MAC champion earned an automatic bid to the Las Vegas Bowl) playing a bowl-eligible team from the Big Ten Conference. If the Big Ten does not have an eligible team, the game will feature a team from the Sun Belt that meets the NCAA requirement of at least six wins. In the event that the Sun Belt does not have an available team, an at-large team can be chosen.

The game was jointly sponsored by the "Big Three" automakers in Detroit from 1998 to 2007 (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler). Starting with the 2008 game, Chrysler was replaced by the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights as a presenting sponsor. In 2009, Little Caesars became the title sponsor of the game after General Motors and Chrysler reorganized under bankruptcy protection. Ford remained as a sponsor.^[2]

The then-named-Motor City Bowl marked the first bowl game held in the Detroit area since the Cherry Bowl in 1984–85. It is the only Division I college bowl game played in the Midwest United States.

The 2009 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, played December 26, 2009, matched the Ohio Bobcats of the Mid-American Conference against the Marshall Thundering Herd of Conference USA.

A bowl record crowd of 60,624 fans witnessed the 2007 bowl game between the Purdue Boilermakers and the Central Michigan Chippewas.

On April 12, 2010, it was announced that the Big Ten Conference has extended its affiliation with the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (Big Ten No.8) through the 2013 season. Also the Sun Belt Conference and the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl have agreed to a secondary tie-in that will allow a Sun Belt Conference team to play in the Detroit based game should the Big Ten Conference not have an available bowl-eligible team to play.

The 2010 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl game, the Big Ten did not have enough teams to fill the slot and the MAC champion Miami-Ohio chose to play in the GoDaddy.com Bowl; the bowl chose the MAC's third place team, Toledo, and the Sun Belt's conference champion Florida International; Florida International won giving the university its first ever bowl win.

ESPN has televised the game since its inception.

The 2011 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl will be Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. (ESPN).

Game results

Date	Winning team	Losing team	Attendance	Game
December 26, 1997	Mississippi	34	Marshall	31	43,340	Game article
December 23, 1998	Marshall	48	Louisville	29	38,016	Game article
December 27, 1999	Marshall	21	BYU	3	44,449	Game article
December 27, 2000	Marshall	25	Cincinnati	14	44,911	Game article
December 29, 2001	Toledo	23	Cincinnati	16	44,164	Game article
December 26, 2002	Boston College	51	Toledo	25	45,761	Game article
December 26, 2003	Bowling Green	28	Northwestern	24	51,286	Game article
December 27, 2004[3]	Connecticut	39	Toledo	10	52,552	Game article
December 26, 2005[4]	Memphis	38	Akron	31	45,801	Game article
December 26, 2006[5]	Central Michigan	31	Middle Tennessee	14	54,113	Game article
December 26, 2007	Purdue	51	Central Michigan	48	60,624	Game article
December 26, 2008	Florida Atlantic	24	Central Michigan	21	41,399	Game article
December 26, 2009	Marshall	21	Ohio	17	30,331	Game article
December 26, 2010	FIU	34	Toledo	32	32,431	Game article

MVPs

Year	MVP(s)	Team	Position
1997	Stewart Patridge	Mississippi	QB
1998	Chad Pennington	Marshall	QB
1999	Doug Chapman	Marshall	RB
2000	Byron Leftwich	Marshall	QB
2001	Chester Taylor	Toledo	RB
2002	Brian St. Pierre	Boston College	QB
2003	Josh Harris	Bowling Green	QB
Jason Wright	Northwestern	RB
2004	Dan Orlovsky	Connecticut	QB
2005	DeAngelo Williams	Memphis	RB
2006	Dan LeFevour	Central Michigan	QB
2007	Curtis Painter	Purdue	QB
2008	Rusty Smith	Florida Atlantic	QB
2009	Martin Ward	Marshall	RB
2010	T. Y. Hilton	FIU	WR

Most appearances

Rank	Team	Appearances	Record
1	Marshall	5	4–1
2	Toledo	4	1–3
3	Central Michigan	3	1–2
4	Cincinnati	2	0–2
T5	Boston College	1	1–0
T5	Bowling Green	1	1–0
T5	Connecticut	1	1–0
T5	Florida Atlantic	1	1–0
T5	FIU	1	1–0
T5	Memphis	1	1–0
T5	Mississippi	1	1–0
T5	Purdue	1	1–0
T5	Akron	1	0–1
T5	BYU	1	0–1
T5	Louisville	1	0–1
T5	Middle Tennessee	1	0–1
T5	Northwestern	1	0–1
T5	Ohio	1	0–1

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See also

• List of Little Caesars Pizza Bowl broadcasters

References

External links

• Official website