BYU Football Will Face UCF In 2020 Boca Raton Bowl
Dec 13, 2020, 9:46 PM | Updated: 9:56 pm
Brigham Young Cougars running back Bryan Kariya (33)dives for a touchdown against UCF in Provo Friday, Sept. 23, 2011. BYU won 24-17. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
(Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
PROVO, Utah – BYU football will take on the UCF Knights in the 2020 Boca Raton Bowl on Tuesday, December 22nd, according to reports and confirmed by KSL Sports.
The Boca Raton Bowl is an ESPN Events bowl game, owned and operated by ESPN. As part of BYU’s new television contract with ESPN, the Cougars are contracted to play in an ESPN Events bowl game in the 2020 season. With BYU being one of the hottest teams in college football this season, ESPN made sure to find the Cougars a bowl destination in a postseason landscape that allows everyone in college football to be eligible.
This will be the third-ever meeting between BYU and UCF. The two programs split the first two meetings, each winning on their home field in a home-and-home series. They last met in 2014 in Orlando.
Kickoff for the game is on a Tuesday night in primetime at 5 p.m. (MT) and will be played at FAU Stadium, two hours and 50 minutes away from UCF’s home campus in Orlando.
Playing this game on December 22nd will eliminate any chance of BYU playing a game this Saturday during the final weekend of the regular season.
BYU is No. 18 in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings and is 10-1 overall on the season. UCF is 6-3 from the American Athletic Conference and boasts the No. 2 offense in college football, averaging 585.6 yards per game.
This matchup will feature two of the best quarterbacks in college football this season in BYU’s Zach Wilson and UCF’s Dillon Gabriel.
Kalani Sitake coached BYU teams are 2-1 in bowl games. Last year the Cougars lost in the Hawaii Bowl against the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.
UCF has been one of the most successful Group of 5 programs in recent seasons. The Knights, coached by former Snow College and Oklahoma Sooner QB Josh Heupel, have won 80 percent of their games since Heupel took over as head coach in 2018.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m., KSL Newsradio). Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper and the KSL Sports app.
