Pittsburgh vs. Bowling Green, 2013 Little Caesars Bowl: Panthers win in non-Birmingham

The Pittsburgh Panthers got a late field goal to take a back-and-forth Little Caesar’s Bowl 30-27 over Bowling Green Thursday night. The Panthers (7-6) finish with a winning record for the first time since 2010, while Bowling Green (10-4) become the sixth MAC team in the last seven years to lose in the Pizza Bowl.

The Panthers built a 17-3 first half lead, highlighted by a Tyler Boyd 54-yard punt return for a score, and it looked like Pitt could run away from Bowling Green. The Falcons got a 29-yard touchdown pass late in the half, though, which cut the Pitt lead down to seven points. Bowling Green returner BooBoo Gates then returned the second half’s opening kick 94 yards for a score, tying the game at 17. An exchange of field goals left the game tied at 20 entering the fourth quarter.

Despite what the image above shows, there were offsetting penalties on the play, and surprisingly, no ejections for either player. It was not immediately clear what the Pitt player may have done to provoke the attack, if anything.

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The Little Caesar Pizza Bowl has the word pizza in the name, and yet here we are. No pizza.

Worse still, the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl doesn’t even have a single piece of pizza visible on its official Instagram page! There is a critical lack of pizza here. Be yourself, Little Caesar Pizza Bowl. Embrace pizza.

I wrote that on December 10 after watching Bowling Green wreck Northern Illinois’ chances at a BCS bid, then lose its head coach to Wake Forest. Now-former head coach Dave Clawson put a hell of a product on the field this year, one that improved overall in 2013 despite regressing on defense.

The Falcons return to Detroit, this time behind interim head coach Adam Scheier. The BGSU team that played through the 2013 regular season was, on average, a decent amount better than its Pizza Bowl opponent, Pittsburgh. Will that be the case on Thursday?

Congratulations, Pittsburgh! You haven’t been sent to Birmingham this year! The Panthers went to the BBVA Compass Bowl in each of the last three seasons, and now they’ll get a welcome change of scenery. They’ll also get a tough matchup in Bowling Green, which is coming off a MAC championship.

The Panthers had their issues on the defensive side during the regular season, and that will be something to watch considering that Bowling Green is averaging 6.7 yards per play. The Falcons have an efficient passer and a quality running back, which makes them a challenging matchup.

Pittsburgh finished the season an even .500 after posting just two straight-up victories in its last six games and will enter the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl as underdogs to Bowling Green.

The Panthers can take some solace in a trend that has seen underdogs cover the Little Caesars Bowl odds five times in the past six seasons. They opened as six-point underdogs to the Falcons, who are projected to win big by the Odds Shark college football computer.

The ACC had 11 bowl-eligible teams this season, with Pitt tying for both the worst overall record (6-6, with North Carolina and Syracuse) and conference record (3-5, with Maryland) among them. The Panthers did beat three other bowl teams this season, with an early-year win over Duke and late-season victories over Notre Dame and Syracuse.

Ralph Friedgen’s final game as Maryland’s head coach came in the 2010 Military Bowl -- the game was also the Terrapins’ last bowl game. Athletic director Kevin Anderson made the change from Friedgen to Randy Edsall, saying he wanted the program to go from “good to great,” and three years later, the Terps get to go to the same place.

Dave Clawson will be the new head coach at Wake Forest, taking over for the now departed Jim Grobe, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. Grobe, who spent 14 years as the head of the Demon Deacons’ program, stepped down last week after a second consecutive bowlless season.

Along with Pete Lembo from Ball State, Clawson was one of two finalists for the Wake Forest opening. He comes over from MAC champion Bowling Green, where he has built the program back into prominence -- after an initial drop from seven wins in 2009 to two in 2010, Clawson has had the Falcons rising ever since, peaking with a 10-win season and a Little Caesars Bowl appearance in 2013.

Delicious football will be on display in this one. Wait. We mean hard-hitting pizza. Check that -- it’s just the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, which, mouth-watering name aside, is still a football game.

Previously known as the Motor City Bowl, the Little Casaers Bowl has a tie-in with the MAC and Big Ten conferences. But since only seven Big Ten teams are bowl eligible, a Sun Belt team or an at-large one is set to take its place instead.