2016 Birmingham Bowl, South Carolina vs. USF: Date, time, location, and everything to know

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The Birmingham Bowl is set for Dec. 29 at the old Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala.

The game started in 2006 as the PapaJohn’s.com Bowl and then, after a few years of being sponsored by terrible pizza, became the BBVA Compass Bowl from 2010 to 2013. (Pitt made three appearances in the BBVA version of the game, which was only played four times. That’s a record that is likely to stand for eternity.)

Nowadays, the game is named for its city, and it’s had some good shows. Florida beat East Carolina by a touchdown and a two-point conversion in 2014, and Auburn filled up the stadium pretty well in a win against upstart Memphis in 2015. (Memphis’ coach, Justin Fuente, had just left town for Virginia Tech.)

The bowl tie-in pits a team from the SEC against a team from the American – South Carolina against South Florida, in this case. Will Muschamp’s going to finally get to participate in one of these things, having coached a team to Birmingham three years in a row.

Date and time: Dec. 29, 2 p.m. ET

TV channel: ESPN

Location: Birmingham, Ala.

Stadium: Legion Field

Last year’s score: Auburn 31, Memphis 10

Last year’s attendance: 59,430

Last year’s TV rating: 2.4 million viewers, a steep decline from the year before.

Last year’s payout for each school: $1.0125 million

Teams with the most all-time appearances: Pitt, 3

Teams with the most all-time wins: 10 games, 10 different winners.

South Carolina (6-6, 3-5 in SEC)

In one of the season’s more unlikely events, a Will Muschamp team found offense. Not a ton of it, but just enough to get the team to the six-win mark. Coming into the season, it was between Perry Orth and Brandon McElwain in a confounding QB battle. Neither player could firmly grasp the starting job, and the Gamecocks floundered.

When the keys were handed to Jake Bentley -- a player so young he could be playing against high schoolers right now in the Alabama state playoffs -- South Carolina found some sense of offensive direction (if only slightly). Bentley powered the Gamecocks to a massive upset of Tennessee at home and showed that the future is now in Columbia.

On a roster lacking in talent, bowl practices can be a welcome time to get back to basics and tune things up without the week-to-week pressures of a game, and South Carolina can use the time to come together as they look forward to 2017. If Bentley is to be the man, he’ll need some help on defense. Luckily, defense is Muschamp’s bread and butter, but he doesn’t have the horses to really make things happen immediately on that side of the ball.

USF (10-2, 7-1 in American Athletic)

USF head coach Willie Taggart has been able to put together some impressive seasons in the past two years at South Florida. Following a 6-18 record in his first two years, he’s been able to put together back-to-back bowl-eligible seasons in 2015 and 2016.

The Bulls looked like the favorites to win the AAC East, entering the Temple game during Week 8 sitting at 6-1 with the one loss coming at the hands of Florida State. However, the 46-30 loss to the Owls put the Bulls out the AAC title game in the end. So they are where they are, even though they were pretty close to having a shot at something like the Cotton Bowl.

USF’s offense has been quite impressive this season, ranked as the No. 2 unit in the country according to S&P+. The do-it-all weapon for the Bulls is quarterback Quinton Flowers, who’s thrown for over 2,000 yards and rushed for over 1,000. Flowers can beat teams with his arm or his legs, and he knows it.