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Memphis Tigers Accept a Bid to the Montgomery Bowl Against the FAU Owls

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Football

Memphis football has accepted a bid to play Florida Atlantic in the Montgomery Bowl, the Tigers' record seventh consecutive bowl appearance. The game is set for Wednesday, Dec. 23, at 6 p.m. CT at the historic Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Ala., and will be televised on ESPN.

The Montgomery Bowl is being played for the first time as a substitute for this year only in place of the previously canceled Fenway Bowl.  

Memphis (7-3, 5-3 American) will face FAU (5-3, 4-2 C-USA) for the second time ever. The Owls won the only previous matchup 44-27 in the 2007 New Orleans Bowl.

"It's great for us to be able to represent the University of Memphis and our city in the first-ever Montgomery Bowl," said Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield. "It's a special opportunity to be able to compete at the highest level in a historic, wonderful city." 

The Tigers are 5-8 in bowl games with 12 of their 13 bowl appearances coming since 2003.

Memphis' current bowl streak began in 2014 and is now more than double the previous record of three consecutive bowl games from 2003-05. Memphis is looking for its first bowl win since a 55-48 victory over BYU in the 2014 Miami Beach Bowl. 

"I know our young men are quite excited about the opportunity to compete and the opportunity to hopefully win a bowl game for the first time in a long time," Silverfield said. 

FAU's win over Memphis in 2007 was the Owls' first bowl game in school history. The program has since won the Motor City Bowl (2008) and the Boca Raton Bowl twice (2017, 2019) to move to 4-0 in bowl games.

The Owls are in their first season under Willie Taggart, who is 61-65 as a college head coach. Taggart was previously head coach at Western Kentucky (2010-12), South Florida (2013-16), Oregon (2017) and Florida State (2018-19). 

FAU defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt was the position coach and defensive coordinator for Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch when he was a linebacker at Kansas State in the mid-1990s. Leavitt was also previously head coach at USF (1997-09), where he went 3-2 against Memphis.

Due to limited seating capacity for the Montgomery Bowl, the Memphis Athletics ticket office will not be selling tickets to the game. For general information on ticket packages and to purchase tickets, fans are encouraged to visit the Montgomery Bowl ticket page by clicking here. Tickets will go on sale beginning Monday, Dec. 14.