The 2017 Cotton Bowl Classic was a

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

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 January 2, 2017, at

AT&T Stadium AT&T Stadium is a retractable roof stadium in Arlington, Texas, United States. It serves as the home of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL), and was completed on May 27, 2009. It is also the home of the Cotton Bowl Classic ...

Arlington, Texas Arlington is a city in Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Mid-Cities region of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan statistical area, and is a principal c ...

. It featured the

Western Michigan Broncos The Western Michigan Broncos are a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I program representing Western Michigan University (WMU) in college athletics. They compete in the Mid-American Conference in men's coll ...

from the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Its members co ...

and the

Wisconsin Badgers The Wisconsin Badgers are the College athletics in the United States, athletic teams representing the University of Wisconsin–Madison. They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I ...

from the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

. The 81st

Cotton Bowl Classic The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its Cotton Bowl (stadium), namesake ...

was one of the New Years Six bowl games in the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual single-elimination tournament, knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, D ...

for the 2016–17 bowl games concluding the 2016 FBS football season. The game was broadcast on

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

ESPN Deportes ESPN Deportes (, ) is an American multinational Spanish-language pay television sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the ...

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternatively branded platform-agnostically as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the banner "SportsRadio ESPN". The netw ...

and

XM Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (XM) was one of the three satellite radio ( SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable ...

. It was sponsored by the

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tire manufacturer headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Goodyear manufactures tires for passenger vehicles, aviation, commercial trucks, military and police vehicles, motorcycles, recreati ...

and was officially known as the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic.

Teams

(MAC) champion Western Michigan was selected as an at-large as the highest ranked

(CFP)

Group of Five The Group of Five (G5) encompasses five nations which have joined together for an active role in the rapidly evolving international order. Individually and as a group, the G5 nations work to promote dialogue and understanding between developing ...

team while Wisconsin was chosen as an at-large out of the

. Wisconsin was an 8 point favorite to start the game. This was the fifth meeting between the schools, with Wisconsin leading the all-time series 4–1. The most recent meeting was on August 31, 2000, where the

Badgers Badgers are medium-sized short-legged omnivores in the superfamily Musteloidea. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity rather than by their ...

defeated the

Broncos A bucking horse is any breed of horse, male or female, with a propensity to buck. They have been, and still are, referred to by various names, including bronco, broncho, and roughstock. The harder they buck, the more desirable they are for ro ...

by a score of 19–7.- Western Michigan Broncos vs. Wisconsin Badgers football series history
/ref> This was the first Cotton Bowl for both teams. With Western Michigan representing the MAC, this was the first Cotton Bowl Classic to feature a MAC team.

Game summary

Scoring summary

Statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2017 Cotton Bowl Classic (01) 2016–17 NCAA football bowl games Cotton Bowl Classic Western Michigan Broncos football bowl games Wisconsin Badgers football bowl games 2017 in sports in Texas 21st century in Arlington, Texas January 2017 sports events in the United States