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The 2024 AutoZone Liberty Bowl will take place at 6 p.m. CT on Friday, Dec. 27, it was announced Thursday afternoon.
The game — which will be televised by ESPN — has typically been played at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium. The expectation is that it’ll still be played there this season even as the stadium is being renovated.
“That’s our plan,” AutoZone Liberty Bowl executive director Steve Ehrhart told the Commercial Appeal. “I would say that, yes, we’re going to be at the stadium.”
Ehrhart said bowl officials have not had discussions with any other stadiums about playing the game outside of Memphis.
Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium is scheduled to undergo a significant renovation the next two years that will temporarily cut the capacity roughly in half. Construction on the west side of the stadium is scheduled to run throughout the 2024 and 2025 football seasons.
In addition to Memphis football home games, the Liberty Bowl and Southern Heritage Classic also take place at the stadium. Both of those games routinely draw more than the roughly 30,000 that will be able to fit in the stadium during the renovations.
“We don’t have final information from either the city or the university, but we’re still working with them on almost an everyday basis,” Ehrhart said.
This will be the 66th Liberty Bowl game, and Ehrhart said it’s the first time the game will be played on a Friday night in prime time. It also will take place in between the first and second rounds of the expanded College Football Playoff.
There will be four bowl games that day, including the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, Birmingham Bowl, and SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl.
The game typically pits a Big 12 team against an SEC team, and conference realignment means there are four new Big 12 teams this season in Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah.
Last year’s…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/2024-autozone-liberty-bowl-set-183113144.html
Author : The Commercial Appeal
Publish date : 2024-06-06 18:31:13
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