The 2022 Sun Bowl 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 December 30, 2022, at the

Sun Bowl The Sun Bowl is a college football bowl game that has been played since 1935 in the southwestern United States at El Paso, Texas. Along with the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl, it is the second-oldest bowl game in the country, behind the Rose Bowl. ...

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

. The 89th edition (88th playing) of the

, the game featured

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

from the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...

(ACC) and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

from the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I level for all sports, and its Co ...

. The game began at 12:13 p.m. MST and was aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

. It was one of the 2022–23 bowl games concluding the 2022 FBS football season. Sponsored by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal, the game was officially known as the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, after its mascot,

Tony the Tiger Tony the Tiger is the advertising cartoon anthropomorphic tiger mascot for Frosted Flakes (also known as Frosties) breakfast cereal, appearing on its packaging and advertising. After the original Kellogg's, Kellogg Company spun off its North Am ...

Teams

The bowl has tie-ins with the

(ACC) and the

, who supplied Pittsburgh and UCLA, respectively, for the game. This will be the 15th meeting between the programs; the Bruins lead the all-time series, 9–5.

Pitt

Pittsburgh played to a 8–4 regular-season record, 5–3 in conference play. They were ranked as high as No. 17. in September, but fell out of the rankings after losing two of their first five games. The Panthers finished their regular season with four consecutive wins. They faced three ranked FBS teams during the season, defeating

Syracuse Syracuse most commonly refers to: * Syracuse, Sicily, Italy; in the province of Syracuse * Syracuse, New York, USA; in the Syracuse metropolitan area Syracuse may also refer to: Places * Syracuse railway station (disambiguation) Italy * Provi ...

while losing to

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

and

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

. Several days before the game, three Pittsburgh players had their flight from Dallas to El Paso canceled on Christmas Day, but were able to make the trip via a carpool with Joe Golding, head basketball coach of the

UTEP Miners men's basketball The UTEP Miners men's basketball team plays for the University of Texas at El Paso in El Paso, Texas, El Paso, Texas. The team is an NCAA Division I men's college basketball team competing in the Conference USA. Home games are played at Don Haskin ...

team, who was making the same Dallas-to-El Paso journey with his family.

UCLA

UCLA compiled a 9–3 regular-season record, 6–3 in conference play. They opened the season with six consecutive wins, but then lost three of their next five games. They faced four ranked opponents during the season, defeating

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

and

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

while losing to

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

and

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

. Ranked as high as No. 9 during the season, the Bruins enter the bowl ranked No. 18 in major polls. Appearing in their fifth Sun Bowl, UCLA is 3–1 in prior editions of the bowl.

Game summary

Statistics

References

{{College bowl games on CBS

Sun Bowl

Pittsburgh Panthers football bowl games UCLA Bruins football bowl games