The 2015 Cure Bowl was a postseason American

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bowl game In North America, a bowl game, or simply bowl, is one of a number of postseason college football games primarily played by NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. For most of its history, the FBS did not use a playoff tourname ...

played on December 19, 2015, at

Orlando Citrus Bowl Camping World Stadium is an outdoor stadium in Orlando, Florida, United States located in the West Lakes neighborhood of Downtown Orlando, west of new sports and entertainment facilities including the Kia Center, the Dr. Phillips Center for t ...

Orlando, Florida Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...

. The first edition of the Cure Bowl featured the San Jose State Spartans of the

Mountain West Conference The Mountain West Conference (MW) is a collegiate athletic conference in the Western United States, participating in NCAA Division I. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The MW officially began operations on Ja ...

against the

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

of the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference that has been affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA's NCAA Division I, Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football confe ...

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

CBS Sports Network CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American digital cable and satellite 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 ...

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

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

Teams

The game featured the San Jose State Spartans 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 landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

and

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') 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 border ...

and together with

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. 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, 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 accus ...

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 ...

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.

Game summary

Scoring Summary

Source:

Statistics

References

{{San Jose State Spartans bowl game navbox Cure Bowl Cure Bowl Cure Bowl Georgia State Panthers football bowl games San Jose State Spartans football bowl games 2010s in Orlando, Florida