The Pizza Bowl might be dead, but the Mid-American Conference might use Detroit as a bowl stomping ground once again.
In a deal just announced by the MAC this morning, the conference has agreed to be a backup tie-in for the Quick Lane Bowl, a bowl whose primary tie-ins are the Big Ten and the Atlantic Coast Conference. The agreement starts this season, and expires after the 2019 bowl season. In the case that neither the B1G nor the ACC cannot qualify a bowl-eligible for the Quick Lane Bowl, a bowl-eligible MAC team will take the vacancy that is created.
Per the MAC's press release on this:
The MAC previously was a primary bowl partner with the Detroit based Motor City Bowl (1997-2008) and the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (2009-2013) over a 17-year period. During this time the MAC had a 7-10 record in the Detroit bowl games, including wins over Louisville, BYU, Cincinnati and Northwestern.
This makes eight bowl affiliations for the MAC this season. Its primary bowl tie-ins include the GoDaddy Bowl, Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Raycom Camelia Bowl, Boca Raton Bowl and Popeye's Bahamas Bowl.The MAC also has backup tie-ins for the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, Gildan New Mexico Bowl, Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, and Birmingham Bowl.
This year's Quick Lane Bowl will be played on Sunday, December 26th at 4:30 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN.