SMU and UTSA will play in the 2020 Frisco Bowl

Next Saturday will be one of the strangest and most eventful in college football history.

There is a large slate of regular season games, seven conference championships, and the first bowl game of 2020 — the Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl — all running on the same day.

The Frisco Bowl matchup of SMU vs. UTSA is set and will be a showdown between two 7-win teams from the Lone Star State. This will be the first-ever meeting between the two programs.

SMU (7-3, 4-3 AAC), located roughly 25 miles south of Frisco, will play in the bowl for the second time in four years. The Mustangs qualified for the 2017 edition of the game where they suffered a 51-10 beatdown to Louisiana Tech. It was Sonny Dykes’ first game acting as head coach, which was played nine days after his hiring. SMU continues its quest for its first bowl victory since June Jones led the program to a Hawaii Bowl win in 2012.

UTSA (7-4, 5-2 C-USA) is also playing in-state, and sits approximately 300 miles outside of Frisco. The Roadrunners will play in their first bowl game since 2016 and their second bowl game in program history. UTSA secured its first winning season in three years under first-year head coach Jeff Traylor and Traylor will aim to secure the Roadrunners’ first postseason victory ever.

The Frisco Bowl will be held in Frisco, TX — a suburb north of Dallas — and broadcasted on ESPN2 at 4:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 19. The game will be held in Toyota Stadium, which serves primarily as a soccer venue and seats 17,200 spectators at full capacity. The 2020 New Mexico Bowl on Dec. 24 will also be held in the same location of Frisco, TX, due to current New Mexico state health guidelines.