USF Football to Play Marshall in Gasparilla Bowl on Thursday, Dec. 20 at 8 p.m.

USF football will stay in Tampa for bowl season this year as they were selected to play Marshall in the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla on Thursday, Dec. 20 at 8 p.m. at Raymond James Stadium.

The game will be televised nationally on ESPN.

Following a late-season collapse where they dropped their final five contests, the 7-5 Bulls limp into their fourth straight bowl appearance to “host” the 8-4 Thundering Herd out of Conference USA.

Marshall finished second in the C-USA East standings this season with their lone setbacks in conference coming to Southern Miss and eventually league runner-up Middle Tennessee State.

Closing the regular season with a hurricane makeup game on Saturday, the Herd were torched 41-20 by Virginia Tech.

Doc Holliday and crew returns to the Bay Area for a bowl for the first time since 2015, where they defeated UConn 16-10 in the St. Petersburg Bowl.

On the other end, this will mark USF’s 10th bowl appearance in its 22 year history, where they sport a 6-3 record.

This is also the third time they’ll play a Conference USA opponent in the postseason, the previous being a 45-35 loss to Western Kentucky in the 2015 Miami Beach Bowl.

As for the bowl itself, the artist formerly known as the St. Petersburg Bowl played its first game under the Bad Boy Mower Gasparilla banner last year, a 28-3 Temple thrashing of FIU.

The most notable thing about that particular game was the festivities in the week leading up, where FIU’s Shane McGough won a lawnmower race at Busch Gardens.

This year, officials decided to move the game across the bay from Tropicana Field to Raymond James Stadium, making the home Bulls a go to choice.