The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that has been played annually since 1997. The first five games (1997–2001) were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. However, starting in 2002, the game was moved to 65,000-seat Ford Field in downtown Detroit, Michigan. Ford Field is home to the NFL's Detroit Lions, and played host to Super Bowl XL. The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl was known as the Motor City Bowl until 2009. The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl features a bowl-eligible team from the Mid-American Conference (usually the winner of the MAC Championship Game) playing a bowl-eligible team from the Big Ten Conference. If the Big Ten does not have an eligible team, the game will feature a team from the Big East that meets the NCAA requirement of at least six wins. In the event that the Big East does not have an available team, an at-large team can be chosen. The game was jointly sponsored by the "Big Three" automakers in Detroit from 1998 to 2007 (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler). Starting with the 2008 game, Chrysler was replaced by the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights as a presenting sponsor. In 2009, Little Caesars became the title sponsor of the game after General Motors and Chrysler reorganized under bankruptcy protection. Ford remained as a sponsor. [1] The then-named-Motor City Bowl marked the first bowl game held in the Detroit area since the Cherry Bowl in 1984–85. It is the only Division I college bowl game played in the Midwest United States. The 2008 Motor City Bowl, played December 26, 2008, matched the Central Michigan Chippewas of the Mid-American Conference against the Florida Atlantic Owls of the Sun Belt Conference. A bowl record crowd of 60,624 fans witnessed the 2007 bowl game between the Purdue Boilermakers and the Central Michigan Chippewas.

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Bowl highlights

The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl showcased the talents of:

• Two Heisman Trophy finalists
• * Randy Moss (Marshall)
• * Chad Pennington (Marshall)
• A Biletnikoff Award winner
• * Randy Moss (Marshall)
• A Lou Groza Award winner
• * Jonathan Ruffin (Cincinnati)
• A Doak Walker Award winner
• * Luke Staley (BYU)
• 20 first and second round NFL Draft picks
• Four nationally-ranked teams

As well, more than 60 current NFL Players have played in the Motor City Bowl.

Bowl matchups and results

Date	Winning Team		Losing Team		Attendance	Notes
December 26, 1997		34	Marshall	31	43,340	notes
December 23, 1998		48		29	38,016	notes
December 27, 1999	Marshall	21		3	44,449	notes
December 27, 2000		25		14	44,911	notes
December 29, 2001		23		16	44,164	notes
December 26, 2002		51		25	45,761	notes
December 26, 2003		28		24	51,286	notes
December 27, 2004 [2]		39		10	52,552	notes
December 26, 2005 [3]		38		31	45,801	notes
December 26, 2006 [4]		31	Middle Tennessee	14	54,113	notes
December 26, 2007	Purdue	51		48	60,624	notes
December 26, 2008	Florida Atlantic	24	Central Michigan	21	41,399	notes

MVPs

Year	MVP(s)	Team	Position
1997	Stewart Patridge	Mississippi	QB
1998	Chad Pennington	Marshall	QB
1999	Doug Chapman	Marshall	RB
2000	Byron Leftwich	Marshall	QB
2001	Chester Taylor	Toledo	RB
2002	Brian St. Pierre	Boston College	QB
2003	Josh Harris	Bowling Green	QB
	Jason Wright	Northwestern	RB
2004	Dan Orlovsky	Connecticut	QB
2005	DeAngelo Williams	Memphis	RB
2006	Dan LeFevour	Central Michigan	QB
2007	Curtis Painter	Purdue	QB
2008	Rusty Smith	Florida Atlantic	QB

Most appearances

Rank	Team	Appearances	Record
1	Marshall	4	3–1
T2	Central Michigan	3	1–2
T2	Toledo	3	1–2
4	Cincinnati	2	0–2
T5	Boston College	1	1–0
T5	Bowling Green	1	1–0
T5	Connecticut	1	1–0
T5	Florida Atlantic	1	1–0
T5	Memphis	1	1–0
T5	Mississippi	1	1–0
T5	Purdue	1	1–0
T5	Akron	1	0–1
T5	BYU	1	0–1
T5	Middle Tennessee State	1	0–1
T5	Northwestern	1	0–1

See also

• List of Little Caesars Pizza Bowl broadcasters