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Missouri Tigers Set To Play Wake Forest Demon Deacons In Gasparilla Bowl

Missouri will travel to Tampa, Fla. to take on Wake Forest in Gasparilla Bowl on Dec 23.

The Missouri Tigers secured bowl eligibility this year with a 6-6 record and now, the Tigers know who they'll be facing in their postseason game. Mizzou will travel to Tampa, Fla. to face the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the Gasparilla Bowl sponsored by Union Home Mortgage.  This will be the Tigers' second consecutive year going to a bowl game.

The Gasparilla Bowl will kick off on Dec 23 at 5:30 p.m. (CT) in Tampa, Fla. at Raymond James Stadium, home of the South Florida Bulls and the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Fans watching from home will be able to tune in on ESPN for the sunset showdown. 

Missouri has some momentum coming into the bowl season, but it hasn't won a bowl game since 2015 when the Tigers took down Minnesota in the Citrus Bowl. Getting a victory here would be huge for head coach Eli Drinkwitz heading into his third offseason at the helm. It may not exactly be the Sugar Bowl, but hoisting any kind of hardware is a bonus come contract extension time. 

Like the Tigers, the Deacs went 7-5 in 2022, finishing sixth in the ACC. They closed their season by losing four of their last five contests but should have a renewed sense of purpose with bowl game bragging rights on the line. Wake Forest is led by quarterback Sam Hartman who's thrown for 3,421 yards and 35 touchdowns this year. The Deacons' passing attack will pose one of the toughest challenges that Missouri has faced this season, but the talented Tigers' defense should be more than up to the task.  

Although it's been seven years since Mizzou pulled off a bowl win, the Tigers' last triumph did coincidentally come in the state of Florida (2015 Citrus Bowl-Orlando, Fla.), so that has to count for something. The Tigers will have just about three weeks to prepare for the Gasparilla Bowl and it's likely that they've already gotten to work. Come game time, this 2022 Mizzou squad will have one more chance to show the world what they're made of. 


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