The 2020 Camellia Bowl was a

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 25, 2020, at the

Cramton Bowl Cramton Bowl is a 25,000-seat stadium located in Montgomery, Alabama. Cramton Bowl opened in 1922 as a baseball stadium and has been home to Major League Baseball spring training and to minor league baseball. Today, however, its primary use is fo ...

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

, with kickoff at 2:30 p.m. EST on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. It was the seventh edition of the

Camellia Bowl Camellia Bowl can refer to one of three college football bowl games: * Camellia Bowl (1948) The Camellia Bowl was a post-season major college football bowl game played at McNaspy Stadium in Lafayette, Louisiana, on December 30, 1948, between t ...

, and was one of the 2020–21 bowl games concluding the 2020 FBS football season. Buffalo defeated Marshall, 17–10, to claim their second bowl victory in school history. This was first bowl game played on

Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...

since the

2003 Hawaii Bowl The 2003 Sheraton Hawaii Bowl was played on Christmas Day 2003, in Honolulu and matched the hometown Hawaii Warriors with the Houston Cougars. This was the second Hawaii Bowl, and the first time Hawaii and Houston played each other. The game was ...

. Christmas Day college football had previously been played at the Cramton Bowl from 1979 to 2001 in the form of the

Blue-Gray Football Classic Livid is a medium bluish-gray color. This color name comes from the Latin color term ''lividus'' meaning "'a dull leaden-blue color', and also used to describe the color of contused flesh, leading to the English expression 'black and blue'". ...

. It was one of two bowl games, along with the inaugural

Montgomery Bowl The Montgomery Bowl was a postseason NCAA Division I FBS college football bowl game played in December 2020. Played at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama, the brand is owned and operated by ESPN Events. The Montgomery Bowl was announced in ...

, that were played at the Cramton Bowl following the 2020 college football season.

Teams

The Camellia Bowl was contested by the

Buffalo Bulls The Buffalo Bulls are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University at Buffalo (UB) in Buffalo, New York. The Bulls compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level as a member of Mid-Am ...

, from the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

(MAC), and the

Marshall Thundering Herd The Marshall Thundering Herd is the intercollegiate athletic collection of teams that collectively represent the Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Thundering Herd athletic teams compete in the Sun Belt Conference, which are membe ...

, from

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

(C-USA). The programs had previously met nine times, with Marshall leading the series, 8–1; their most recent meeting had been a 48–14 win by Marshall in 2004. This was the programs' first meeting in a bowl game, and the first Camellia Bowl for both teams.

Buffalo

Buffalo of the MAC accepted their bowl bid on December 20, 2020. The Bulls entered the bowl with an overall record of 5–1 (5–0 in conference play). They won the MAC East division and competed in the

MAC Championship Game The MAC Football Championship Game is a football game between the winners of the East and West divisions of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) to determine the conference champion. History The game has been played since 1997, when the conferenc ...

, where they lost to

Ball State Ball State University (Ball State, State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana. It has two satellite facilities in Fishers and Indianapolis. On July 25, 1917, the Ball brothers, industrialists and founders of the Ball C ...

Marshall

Marshall from C-USA accepted their bowl bid on December 20, 2020. The Thundering Herd entered the bowl with an overall record of 7–2 (4–1 in conference play); they were ranked at number 15 in the

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

at the end of November.

Game summary

Statistics

References

External links

Game statistics
at statbroadcast.com {{Marshall Thundering Herd bowl game navbox

Camellia Bowl Buffalo Bulls football bowl games Marshall Thundering Herd football bowl games