After finishing the regular season with a record of 7-5, the Penn State Nittany Lions have officially accepted the invitation to travel to Jacksonville to take on the Georgia Bulldogs in the TaxSlayer Bowl (formerly named the Gator Bowl). It was not immediately clear if all of Georgia’s other assistants would stay on through the bowl game.
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Kickoff for the TaxSlayer Bowl is scheduled for noon at EverBank Field, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Bulldogs will be playing their first game since Mark Richt was sacked.
Penn State head coach James Franklin leads the team onto the field this season for a game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt will remain in their roles, Georgia announced last week.
Georgia, Georgia Southern and Georgia State are all going bowling. Prior to their five-year absence, the Lions had been a Florida bowl fixture, making seven of their previous 11 bowl appearances in the state. It was the site of Joe Paterno’s first bowl game as head coach in 1967.
This bowl game qualifies as a second-tier selection, so after a disappointing season for Georgia, this serves as a nice reward for battling adversity. The Lions won 27-23 to capture the national championship.
The Dawgs – who lost to Florida this year, as well as Alabama and Tennessee – have a very similar profile to Penn State with the defense typically outshining an inconsistent offense.
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But since then, Penn State has only appeared once in one of the nation’s oldest bowl games – a 20-9 loss to Notre Dame in the 1976 contest.
