The 2015 Cure Bowl was a postseason American

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

played on December 19, 2015 at

Orlando Citrus Bowl Camping World Stadium is a stadium in Orlando, Florida, located in the West Lakes neighborhood of Downtown Orlando, west of new sports and entertainment facilities including the Amway Center, the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, a ...

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

. The first edition of the

Cure Bowl The Cure Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game that has been played in December of each year in Orlando, Florida since 2015. It was originally held at Camping World Stadium before moving to Exploria Stadium in 2022. The Cure Bow ...

featured the

San Jose State Spartans The San Jose State Spartans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent San José State University. SJSU sports teams compete in the Mountain West Conference (MW) at the NCAA Division I level, with football competing in the Football B ...

of the

Mountain West Conference The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations o ...

against the

Georgia State Panthers The Georgia State Panthers are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent Georgia State University, located in Atlanta, Georgia. Almost all GSU teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as mem ...

of the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...

. It began at 7:00 p.m. EST and aired on

CBS Sports Network CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Television also known as ...

. It was the one of the 2015–16 bowl games that concluded the 2015 FBS football season. Sponsored by automotive retailer

AutoNation AutoNation is an American automotive retailer based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which provides new and pre-owned vehicles and associated services in the United States. The company was founded by Wayne Huizenga in 1996, starting with twelve Aut ...

, the game was officially known as the AutoNation Cure Bowl.

Teams

The game featured the

against the

. It was the first overall meeting between the two schools.

San Jose State Spartans

Because the Spartans finished 5–7 in their regular season, they would ordinarily be bowl-ineligible. However, only 77 teams finished at .500 or better on the season, leaving three bowl slots open to 5–7 teams based on their Academic Progress Rate (APR). The Spartans ranked fourth among such teams, after

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

and

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

and together with

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. However, since Missouri did not accept a bowl bid, the Spartans were invited to the Cure Bowl, which they accepted. This was the Spartans' tenth bowl game (with a 6–3 all-time record in bowl games) and their first since the

2012 Military Bowl The 2012 Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman was a post-season American college football bowl game held on December 27, 2012, at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, D.C. The fifth edition of the Military Bowl began at 3:00&n ...

, where

they In Modern English, ''they'' is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject. Morphology In Standard Modern English, ''they'' has five distinct word forms: * ''they'': the nominative (subjective) form * ''them'': the accusat ...

defeated

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...

by a score of 29–20.

Georgia State Panthers

After finishing 6–6 in their regular season, bowl director Alan Gooch extended an invitation for the Panthers to play in the game, which they accepted. This was the first bowl game in school history for Georgia State, seven years after football was approved, five years after they kicked off, and two years after joining the

Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

. This ties the record for a team going from conception to a bowl berth, set the season prior by

South Alabama South Alabama is the various parts of southern Alabama. Although it is not a strictly defined geographic region, it generally includes all Alabama counties south of the Black Belt. In that view, ''South Alabama'' consists of just the two counties ...

Game summary

Scoring Summary

Source:

Statistics

References

{{San Jose State Spartans bowl game navbox

Cure Bowl

Georgia State Panthers football bowl games San Jose State Spartans football bowl games 2010s in Orlando, Florida