2022 Fenway Bowl
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| 2022 Wasabi Fenway Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||
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| 1st Fenway Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | December 17, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Fenway Park | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Boston, Massachusetts | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Jawhar Jordan (RB, Louisville) & Monty Montgomery (LB, Louisville)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | Louisville by 2[2] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | Jeff Servinski (Big Ten)[3] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 15,000[4] | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ESPN | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Chris Cotter (play-by-play), Mark Herzlich (analyst), and Kelsey Riggs (sideline) | ||||||||||||||||||
The 2022 Fenway Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 17, 2022, at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. The game was the inaugural edition of the Fenway Bowl and it featured Cincinnati from the American Athletic Conference and Louisville from the Atlantic Coast Conference. The game began at 11:03 a.m. EST[5] and aired on ESPN.[6] It was one of the 2022–23 bowl games concluding the 2022 FBS football season. Sponsored by cloud storage company Wasabi Technologies, it was officially known as the Wasabi Fenway Bowl.
The lead-up to the game was unique in that both schools made coaching changes shortly before, and shortly after, bowl matchups were being determined that involved each other. Immediately following the conclusion of their regular season, Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell was hired by Wisconsin, leaving the Cincinnati job vacant. On December 2, the Fenway Bowl matchup was announced, and three days later Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield was hired as Cincinnati's next coach, though he recused himself from involvement in the bowl game on the part of either team. Both teams had interim head coaches for the game: cornerbacks coach and special teams coordinator Kerry Coombs for Cincinnati and director of player development Deion Branch for Louisville.
The game started defensively; the first six drives resulted in three punts, two fumbles, and a turnover on downs. Louisville scored the game's first points with less than 30 seconds remaining in the first quarter with a one-play touchdown drive on a rush by Jawhar Jordan, and Cincinnati scored for the first time on their next drive with a pass from Evan Prater to Wyatt Fischer. The Cardinals scored the game's third straight touchdown in response, with a pass from Brock Domann to Marshon Ford, and added another on their next drive with under a minute left. After a fumble and two punts to begin the second half, Louisville added to their lead with a 48-yard field goal; Cincinnati punted on each of their final four drives and Louisville committed three turnovers before kneeling to run out the clock on their final drive to win 24–7.
The 2022 season was the third straight year for which the Fenway Bowl's inaugural edition was scheduled; it was cancelled in both 2020 and 2021. The 2020 edition was cancelled on October 23, 2020, well before the 2020 regular season had concluded,[7] while the 2021 edition was cancelled on December 26, 2021, three days before it was set to be played.[8] The COVID-19 pandemic caused the first cancellation while an outbreak of the Omicron variant within the Virginia program forced the second cancellation as they were unable to play and their scheduled opponent, SMU, was unable to find a replacement.[9]
Teams
The Fenway Bowl featured the Louisville Cardinals from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Cincinnati Bearcats from the American Athletic Conference. The Bearcats and Cardinals were long-time conference mates, having played together in the Missouri Valley Conference from 1963 to 1969, as independents from 1975 to 1995, in Conference USA from 1996 to 2004, in the Big East Conference from 2005 to 2012, and in the American Athletic Conference in 2013.[10][11] Both teams played annually for The Keg of Nails trophy until the rivalry went dormant when Louisville joined the ACC in 2014.[12]
On November 27, 2022, Wisconsin announced that it had hired Cincinnati's Luke Fickell to become their new head coach, meaning that Fickell would not coach Cincinnati in the Fenway Bowl.[13] To fill the vacancy, Cincinnati hired Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield to the same position on December 5,[14] three days after Cincinnati and Louisville were announced as bowl opponents.[15] At his introductory press conference, Satterfield said that he would have no part in the bowl game with respect to either team.[16]
Entering the game, Cincinnati led the all-time series 30–22–1.[10] The teams had last met in 2013, when Louisville defeated Cincinnati, 31–24, in overtime.[17]
Cincinnati
The Bearcats, representing the American Athletic Conference (AAC) and coming off of a College Football Playoff appearance in 2021, began their campaign with a road trip to play No. 19 Arkansas, to whom they lost by a touchdown.[18] Cincinnati earned their first win of the year the following weekend, as they defeated Kennesaw State by 53 points in their home opener.[19] A neutral-site game at Paycor Stadium followed, as the Bearcats defeated rivals Miami (OH),[20] and they returned home to finish September with a 21-point win over Indiana.[21] In their first AAC contest, the Bearcats beat Tulsa by ten,[22] which put them back into the AP Top 25 for the first time since the preseason poll.[23] Cincinnati then defeated South Florida on homecoming before taking a bye week.[24] They earned bowl eligibility following a defeat of SMU on the road,[25] though dropped out of the rankings the next week after losing a four-point contest at UCF.[26] They rebounded quickly with a pair of home conference wins against Navy[27] and East Carolina,[28] before traveling to Philadelphia and beating Temple by twenty points.[29] Cincinnati's regular season concluded with a home loss to No. 19 Tulane, which knocked them out of contention for a third consecutive AAC championship.[30] The Bearcats accepted a bid to the Fenway Bowl on December 2; they entered the game with an overall record of 9–3 and a conference record of 6–2.[31]
This was Cincinnati's final game as a member of the American Athletic Conference, as the Bearcats joined the Big 12 Conference in 2023.[32]
Louisville
Louisville, representing the Atlantic Coast Conference, began the season with a conference road matchup against Syracuse, resulting in a 24-point loss for the Cardinals.[33] Their first win came the next week as they traveled to Orlando and defeated UCF.[34] Their first two home games of the year, played against Florida State and South Florida, ended in a close loss and a blowout win, respectively, putting the Cardinals at 2–2 after their first month of play.[35][36] Another pair of road games followed, as Louisville fell to Boston College by a single point[37] before beating Virginia by seventeen, earning their first ACC win before heading into a bye week.[38] Their next contest, a homecoming matchup with Pittsburgh, marked Louisville's first run of consecutive wins on the year,[39] and they added a third in a row the following week by virtue of a 27-point upset of No. 10 Wake Forest.[40] The Cardinals earned bowl eligibility with a win the following Saturday over James Madison, extending their win streak to four.[41] The streak came to an end on the road against No. 10 Clemson,[42] though Louisville was able to rebound the following week by defeating No. 24 NC State in their final home game.[43] Their final regular season game was a Governor's Cup game at Kentucky, a 13-point loss for the Cardinals.[44] They entered the bowl game with an overall record of 7–5 and an ACC mark of 4–4.[45]
In addition to the majority of its full-time coaches, Louisville was without quarterback Malik Cunningham, who opted out and declared for the NFL draft on December 9.[46]