The 2021 Cheez-It Bowl was a college football

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 Subdivi ...

played on December 29, 2021, with kickoff at 5:45 p.m. EST 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

Cheez-It Bowl The Cheez-It Bowl is an annual college football bowl game that is played in Orlando, Florida, at Camping World Stadium. The bowl is operated by Florida Citrus Sports, a non-profit group which also organizes the Citrus Bowl and the Florida C ...

, and was one of the 2021–22 bowl games concluding the 2021 FBS football season. Food manufacturing company

Kellogg's The Kellogg Company, doing business as Kellogg's, is an American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. Kellogg's produces cereal and convenience foods, including crackers and toas ...

was the title sponsor of the game, through its

Cheez-It Cheez-It is a brand of cheese cracker manufactured by the Kellogg Company through its Sunshine Biscuits division. Approximately , the rectangular crackers are made with wheat flour, vegetable oil, cheese made with skim milk, salt, and spices. ...

brand.

Teams

Consistent with conference tie-ins, the game was played between teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and 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 f ...

. This was the first matchup between Clemson and Iowa State.

Clemson Tigers

Clemson completed their regular season with a 9–3 overall record, 6–2 in ACC games. The Tigers suffered two losses in their first four games, and did not reach the

ACC Championship Game The ACC Championship Game is an annual American college football game held in early December by the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) each year to determine its football champion. From its inception in 2005 to 2022, the game pit the champion of t ...

for the first time since the 2014 season. Clemson played three ranked teams during the regular season, losing to

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

while defeating Wake Forest.

Iowa State Cyclones

Iowa State completed their regular season with an overall 7–5 record, 5–4 in Big 12 games. The Cyclones also lost two of their first four games, and later finished the season by losing three of their final five games. Iowa State faced three ranked FBS teams during the regular season, losing to

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, 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: Wiscon ...

and Oklahoma while defeating

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 ...

Game summary

Statistics

References

External links

Game statistics
at statbroadcast.com {{Iowa State Cyclones bowl game navbox

Pop-Tarts Bowl Clemson Tigers football bowl games Iowa State Cyclones football bowl games