The 2015 Peach 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 ...

that was played on December 31, 2015, at the

Georgia Dome The Georgia Dome was a domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of the Georgia World Congress Center ...

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

.The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the College Football Playoff.
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. The 48th

Peach Bowl The Peach Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played in Atlanta, Georgia since December 1968. Since 1997, it has been sponsored by Chick-fil-A and is officially known as the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. From 2006 to 2013, it was officially re ...

was one of the

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bowl games.About the College Football Playoff.
ESPN. It was one of the 2015–16 bowl games that concluded the 2015 FBS football season. Sponsored by the

Chick-fil-A Chick-fil-A ( , a Word play, play on the American English pronunciation of "wikt:filet#Pronunciation, filet") is an American fast food restaurant chain which is the country's largest which specializes in chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in Coll ...

restaurant franchise, the game is officially known as the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. The game started at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. The game was 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 ...

and

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, and broadcast on

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and

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Background

Houston, in their first year under newly hired

Tom Herman Thomas Herman III (born June 2, 1975) is an American football coach and head coach of the Florida Atlantic Owls. He was the head football coach for the Texas Longhorns at the University of Texas at Austin from 2017 to 2020. Prior to that, he se ...

, raced off to a 10–0 start and a #13 ranking, but a loss to Connecticut opened up a chance for Navy to swoop in and win the division title. However, the Cougars beat the Midshipmen handily to win the West Division and qualify for the first-ever

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

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. Their

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over Temple the following week gave Houston their first conference title since 2006. Since the Cougars were the highest ranked "Group of Five" ranked team, they were selected to play in the Peach Bowl. This was their first major bowl appearance since the

1985 Cotton Bowl Classic The 1985 Cotton Bowl Classic was the 49th edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, on Tuesday, January 1. Part of the 1984–85 bowl game season, it matched the No. 8 Boston College Eagles (inde ...

. Florida State had started the season 6–0 before a loss to Georgia Tech on the final play of the game dropped them from #9 to #17 ranked. A loss to then #3-ranked Clemson curtailed Atlantic Division title hopes in the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

. This was the Seminoles' first Peach Bowl since

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Game summary

Scoring summary

Source:

Statistics

Game notes

* First loss by Jimbo Fisher to a non "Power 5" team at Florida State. * Houston is 13–2–2 all time against Florida State

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peach Bowl, 2015 2015–16 NCAA football bowl games

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

2015 in sports in Georgia (U.S. state) December 2015 sports events in the United States 2015 in Atlanta