Auburn headed to the Music City Bowl to face Maryland
AUBURN — Auburn football will avoid a two-year hiatus from the postseason, as Hugh Freeze and co. will face Maryland in the Music City Bowl on December 30.
The game will be played in Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., with kickoff set for 1 pm CT on ABC.
The Tigers finished 6-6 overall and 3-5 in SEC play after one possession losses to SEC East champion Georgia, 10-win Ole Miss and SEC West champion Alabama, a shocking loss to New Mexico State, double-digit losses to Texas A&M and LSU, along with double-digit wins over Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Arkansas.
The Terrapins finished 7-5 overall and 4-5 in the Big Ten East. Maryland’s notable losses were a 20-point loss at Ohio State, a 36-point home loss to Penn State, a 7-point home loss to Michigan. The Terrapins started the season 5-0 before finishing 2-7. In conference, Maryland beat Michigan State, Indiana, Nebraska and Rutgers.
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The ESPN Football Power Index ranks Auburn No. 30 and Maryland No. 33 heading into the bowl season. The FPI ranked Auburn’s strength of schedule No. 12, while ranking Maryland’s SOS No. 9.
Auburn is 2-1 all-time against Maryland. Auburn won the last meeting at home during the 1983 regular season by a final of 35-23.
This will be Auburn’s third time to play in the Music City Bowl. The Tigers defeated Wisconsin 28-14 in the 2003 Music City Bowl and Purdue 63-14 in 2018.
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Freeze performed well in bowl games at Ole Miss and Liberty.
At Ole Miss, his teams won the BBVA Compass Bowl (2012, but later vacated by the NCAA), Music City (2013) and Sugar Bowls (2015), while losing the Peach Bowl (2014). At Liberty, his teams won back-to-back Cure Bowls in 2019 and 2020, and won the Lending Tree Bowl in 2021. Liberty lost the Boca Raton Bowl following the 2022 season, as Freeze had already left for Auburn.
Recent Auburn bowl history
Auburn’s all-time bowl record is 24-20-2. The program’s most appearances are in the Gator Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Chick-Fil-A Bowl (six appearances each).
Since beating Virginia in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl after the 2011 season, Auburn has only won two bowl games in their last nine appearances. The Tigers beat Memphis in the Birmingham Bowl following the 2015 season and Purdue in the Music City Bowl following the 2018 season.
The seven bowl losses during the last nine appearances were against Florida State (2013), Wisconsin (2014), Oklahoma (2016), UCF (2017), Minnesota (2019), Northwestern (2020) and Houston (2021).
The win over Virginia capped a program-best streak of five straight bowl wins. The Tigers beat Nebraska after the 2006 season, followed by bowl wins over Clemson (2007), Northwestern (2009) and Oregon to win the national championship following the 2010 season.
Pat Dye went 6-2 in bowl games. Terry Bowden went 2-1 in bowl games. Tommy Tuberville went 5-3. Gene Chizik went 3-0. And Gus Malzahn went 2-6.
