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A 5-7 team over 2700 miles away played a 6-6 Sun Belt team making its first bowl appearance in the first-ever Cure Bowl in 2015. The announced attendance was 18,536, but crowd shots from the CBS Sports Network broadcast indicate there may have been even fewer people there. This inauspicious start set the tone for the first five years of the Cure Bowl.
The Cure Bowl started with the Sun Belt's fourth bowl selection and an opponent from the American Athletic Conference (now simply, The American). The ambiguity in the American's selection would show the conference's perception of the bowl. The Sun Belt had long been the lowest conference on the FBS totem poll, especially in Bowl Season. The conference had a single bowl tie-in to the New Orleans Bowl from 2001 to 2009 and two tie-ins until 2013 after Mobile's GoDaddy.com Bowl entered the fray. The conference had not placed a team in the AP Poll until 2016.
For all these reasons, the American either sent their worst bowl teams or vacated the spot entirely. In the five seasons that the American had a primary tie-in to the Cure Bowl, they only sent a team twice. Both times, they sent 6-6 teams, UCF in 2016 and Tulane in 2018. Tulane's participation in the 2018 Cure Bowl is even more surprising given that the Sun Belt sent its runner-up, West Division champion Louisiana, to the game.
This context shows it may have been best for all parties when ESPN Events acquired the game ahead of the 2020 season. With this came a more open selection process that picked from the Group of Five entirely rather than just the Sun Belt and American Conference.
The move instantly made the Cure Bowl one of the crowning bowls of the Group of Five bowl season. Since 2020, eight conference champions and nine conference championship game participants have played in the Cure Bowl. 2020's 11-1 Liberty team, then an independent, is not included in that figure. The Cure Bowl has transformed from an afterthought to must-see TV.
After all these years, the American finally will send one of its best schools to the Cure Bowl. 9-3 USF, once a College Football Playoff frontrunner, will play 9-3 Old Dominion. The battle is one of the most anticipated in the early Bowl Season and a key battle for conference supremacy within the Group of Five.
ESPN Events' efforts to create must-see TV out of bowl games has enhanced Bowl Season in many ways. Perhaps the most unexpected way, was helping the Cure Bowl finally become a crucial bowl game for the American Conference.
