Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, FIU Vs. Toledo: Panthers Kick Field Goal As Time Expires, Win 34-32

The highlight of the day, besides Jack Griffin’s 34-yard field goal as time expired, happened when the Panthers faced fourth-and-17 on their final drive. In true mi-major fashion, the time was right to break out the old hook-and-lateral for a first down.

SB Nation’s MAC blog, Hustle Belt, questions the wider lack of fast-food sponsorship of college football bowl games. Why is Little Caesars, of all places, getting all this postseason action?

Last night I was thinking about why KFC doesn’t sponsor a bowl. Think about this: KFC sells bowls of food, and by the Rule of Homonyms, it’s also a televised college football exhibition game. This will happen soon, perhaps somewhere in Kentucky, but for now we can only hope that the marketing prodigies figure this one out. In the meantime, the most delicious postseason game remains the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl.

Delicious is, of course, a relative term, but this game’s title sponsor’s offering is a lot like tonight’s game: We’ll consume it because it’s there. And don’t rule out the possibility of food-based tie-ins:

The Golden Panthers jumped to the FBS back in 2003 and in that short period of time, they have made tremendous strides, but this year’s team cleared a new hurdle. This year FIU took it to a new level. After beginning the campaign with four straight losses, the Golden Panthers captured wins in six of their last eight matchups. The season-ending loss to Middle Tennessee was crippling though, as it took away from FIU’s chances of claiming the outright Sun Belt Conference title. However, with six victories under their belt and more importantly a share of the league title the Golden Panthers earned a spot in a bowl game for the first time in the program’s history and coach Mario Cristobal, who was named Sun Belt Coach of the Year, understands the importance of this new challenge.

“It’s great to finally be able to walk the walk,” said coach Cristobal. “We have been talking and preaching this since the day we got to FIU. We have overcome a number of monumental hurdles along the way and now we find ourselves in position to accomplish the rest of our goals for this season.”