It’s CU versus CU in Champs Sports Bowl

The University of Colorado accepted an invitation Sunday to play Clemson University in the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, FL, set for Tue, Dec 27.

The game will be televised nationally by ESPN and will kickoff at 3 pm MST. It is one of just two bowls that day, along with the Arizona State-Rutgers match-up for the Insight.com Bowl.

Colorado, the two-time reigning Big 12 Conference North Division champions, are 7-5 on the season, with a 5-3 record in league play. The Buffaloes will be coming off a 70-3 defeat at the hands of No. 2 Texas in the Big 12 Championship game, but will be seeking to regain the form they had when rolling up 20-plus point victories over bowl-bound teams Kansas and Missouri, as well as the defensive play it achieved in being one of only four Division I-A schools to post two shutouts in 2005.

Clemson will enter the game with a 7-4 record, including a 4-4 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play, finishing third in the league’s Atlantic Division. The Tigers closed the regular season with three straight victories, including signature wins over then-No. 17 Florida State, the eventual ACC champion, and archrival and No. 19 South Carolina.

Both fared the same against two common opponents: Clemson opened the year at home with a 25-24 win over Texas A&M, a team CU defeated soundly in Boulder in October, 41-20; the Tigers lost to Miami, Fla., 36-30, in three overtimes, also at home, just one week before the Hurricanes defeated the Buffs in Miami, 23-3.

It will be the 27th bowl appearance for Colorado, the 23rd most in the nation, as CU is 12-14 in the postseason. This will technically be Colorado’s second appearance in the Champs Sports Bowl, its first in Orlando; the Buffaloes played in the game when it was located in Fort Lauderdale as the old Blockbuster Bowl, losing to Alabama, 30-25, in 1991. It will be Clemson’s 28th bowl, as the Tigers are 14-13.

This will be just the second meeting on the gridiron between the two schools who both go by CU; the first also came in the postseason, as in the 1957 Orange Bowl, the Buffaloes sprinted to a 20-0 lead, saw the Tigers rally to take a 21-20 edge, with John Bayuk’s second touchdown run of the day rallying the Boulder-based CU to a 27-21 win.

Colorado and Clemson have two of the three Lou Groza Award finalists, as Mason Crosby and Jad Dean vie with Oregon State’s Alexis Serna for the honor, which will be announced this Thursday, ironically in Orlando.

The two schools also have the nation’s co-leaders in fourth quarter comebacks. Colorado quarterback Joel Klatt and Clemson signal-caller Charlie Whitehurst, both seniors, have led their teams back from fourth quarter deficits to win or send games into overtime nine times; both own 8-1 records in such instances.

In other team news, Klatt was released from the Hermann Medical Center in Houston after being held for observation overnight following a vicious illegal helmet-to-chin hit in the third quarter of CU’s loss to Texas in the conference title game on Saturday. He returned to Colorado with his wife, Sara, and his parents, Gary and Rita Klatt, midday Sunday. The Longhorns Drew Kelson was penalized but not ejected from the game for the cheap shot, which left Klatt on the ground for several minutes with a major concussion but fortunately no expected long-term effects.

Please refer to CUBuffs.com early this week for ticket information to the Champs Sports Bowl. The ticket price is $50, and Colorado will receive an allotment of 12,000 tickets for the 65,438-seat Florida Citrus Bowl, which will also play host to the January 2 game in its name between Wisconsin and Auburn.

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