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ST. PAUL -- The University of Minnesota Gophers will go bowling in New York City.
Minnesota will play Syracuse in the Pinstripe Bowl at 1 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 29, at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. It will air on ESPN.
The Big Ten entered into an eight-year agreement with the Pinstripe Bowl with a goal of getting eight different conference teams in the game. Seven different Big Ten teams have played in it so far — Penn State, Indiana, Northwestern, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Maryland. Only the Hoosiers have lost the bowl game.
The Gophers’ other possible bowl destination, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, went to Maryland, which will play North Carolina State. The Music City Bowl will be Iowa vs. Kentucky.
The Gophers will play in an MLB stadium for a second straight year. At Chase Field in Phoenix last December, the U beat West Virginia 18-6 in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
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Gophers athletics director Mark Coyle hired both school’s coaches. When Coyle was at Syracuse, he hired Dino Babers in 2015. After taking the same role at Minnesota in 2016, Coyle hired Fleck in 2017.
The Gophers (8-4, 5-4 Big Ten) became bowl eligible with a sixth win in a 20-13 comeback over Nebraska on Nov. 5 and added to it with a seventh win over Northwestern. They got to eight with a 23-16 win over Wisconsin two weekends ago.
The Gophers are 3-0 in bowl games under head coach P.J. Fleck, including the 2021 Guaranteed Rate Bowl, the 2020 Outback Bowl and the 2018 Quick Lane Bowl. They opted not to play in a bowl game during the pandemic season two years ago.
Minnesota has won five straight bowl games, dating to the 2015 Citrus Bowl loss to Missouri.
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