The 2021 Guaranteed Rate 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 28, 2021, with kickoff at 10:15 p.m. EST (8:15 p.m. local

MST The Master of Studies or Master in Studies (M.St. or MSt; ) is a postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of St Andrews, the Australian National University, University of Dublin and the University of Ne ...

) and televised 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 32nd edition of the

Guaranteed Rate Bowl The Guaranteed Rate Bowl is an annual college football bowl game that has been played in the state of Arizona since 1989. Played as the Copper Bowl from inception through 1996, it was known as the Insight.com Bowl from 1997 through 2001, then ...

, although the first played under that name (the 2020 edition was canceled due to an insufficient number of teams being available to fill all bowl slots) and was one of the 2021–22 bowl games concluding the 2021 FBS football season. Residential mortgage company

Guaranteed Rate Guaranteed Rate Companies is a U.S. residential mortgage company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 2000 by Victor Ciardelli, the company had $73 billion in funded volume in 2020. As of 2021, the company has more than 10,000 employees ...

was the game's title sponsor.

Teams

Consistent with conference tie-ins, the game was played between teams from the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

and the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

. This was first time that Minnesota and West Virginia ever played each other.

West Virginia Mountaineers

West Virginia finished their regular season with an overall 6–6 record, 4–5 in Big 12 games. After starting their season with four losses in their first six games, the Mountaineers won four of their final six games to become bowl eligible. West Virginia played four ranked opponents, losing to

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

and

Oklahoma State Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New M ...

while defeating

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

and

Iowa State Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

Minnesota Golden Gophers

Minnesota finished their regular season with an overall 8–4 record, 6–3 in Big Ten games. The Golden Gophers were ranked 20th after winning six of their first eight games, but then lost two of their final four games. Minnesota played three ranked teams, losing to

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

and

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

while defeating

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

Game summary

Statistics

References

Externals links

Game statistics
at statbroadcast.com {{West Virginia Mountaineers bowl game navbox

Guaranteed Rate Bowl Minnesota Golden Gophers football bowl games West Virginia Mountaineers football bowl games