2024 LA Bowl
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| 2024 Art of Sport LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk | |||||||||||||||||||
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| 4th LA Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | December 18, 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | SoFi Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Inglewood, California | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Off.: Jacob De Jesus (WR, UNLV) Def.: Jackson Woodard (LB, UNLV)[1][2] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | UNLV by 3.5 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | Ted Pitts (Sun Belt)[3] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 24,420 | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ESPN ESPN Radio | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Bob Wischusen (play-by-play), Louis Riddick (analyst), and Kris Budden (sideline) (ESPN) Roxy Bernstein (play-by-play) and Max Starks (analyst) (ESPN Radio) | ||||||||||||||||||
The 2024 LA Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 18, 2024, at SoFi Stadium located in Inglewood, California. The fourth annual LA Bowl game featured California and UNLV. The game began at approximately 6:00 p.m. PST and aired on ESPN.[4][5] The LA Bowl was one of the 2024–25 bowl games concluding the 2025 FBS football season. Through a marketing agreement with former National Football League player Rob Gronkowski, and sponsorship by Art of Sport, a Starco Brands subsidiary, the game was officially known as the Art of Sport LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk.[6][7]
California Golden Bears
The bowl featured the California Golden Bears of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and the UNLV Rebels of the Mountain West Conference; California was selected due to being a former Pac-12 Conference school.[8]
This was the second meeting between California and UNLV, the first coming in 2022, a 20–14 victory for the Golden Bears in Berkeley.[9] Neither team had appeared in a previous LA Bowl.
California entered the game with an 6–6 record (2–6 in the ACC), tied for 14th place in their conference. The Golden Bears faced and lost to three ranked FBS teams during the regular season: Miami (FL), Pittsburgh, and SMU.
UNLV Rebels
UNLV entered the game with an 10–3 record (6–1 in the MW), tied for second place in their conference and ranked 24th in both the AP poll and the College Football Playoff (CFP) final rankings. The Rebels became the first ranked team to play in an LA Bowl. Their most recent prior bowl victory was in the 2000 Las Vegas Bowl.
The Rebels faced and lost to one ranked team during the regular season, Boise State by a 29–24 score. UNLV qualified for the Mountain West Conference Championship Game but again lost to Boise State, 21–7. For the LA Bowl, UNLV named Del Alexander interim head coach, following Barry Odom leaving the program to accept the head coaching position at Purdue.[10]
With the Rebels win, UNLV won its first bowl game since 2000.