The Duke football team became bowl eligible for the first time since 1994 and were rewarded with a trip to the Belk Bowl. The Blue Devils will face the Cincinnati Bearcats of the Big East on December 27th at 6:30pm ET on ESPN. The Belk Bowl will be played in Charlotte, NC at the Bank of America Stadium (wonder who has the advantage there?)

Cincinnati is 8-3 overall and lost to both Louisville and Rutgers in their conference, and Toledo out of it. They won their fourth Big East title in the last five years (though in a tie). Duke is just 6-6 and has lost four games in a row.

What is the Belk Bowl you ask?

It began back in 2002 with a sellout crowd of 73,535 at the home of the Carolina Panthers. The ACC and Big East supply the opponents. In that first game, Virginia played West Virginia (the number 2 teams in each of their respective conferences).

Bank of America Stadium thus played host to the largest non-BCS crowd of the bowl season and the second most attended inaugural game in the history of the NCAA.