UCF -5 (-110) over Georgia Tech
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- UCF is playing in its home state here and should have the crowd advantage in this matchup.
- UCF has won three of its last four games to become bowl eligible and that should work in their favor from a momentum standpoint.
The Gasparilla Bowl is a bowl tradition that is named for a pirate-themed festival that takes place in Tampa on an annual basis. This game takes place in Tampa each year at Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which goes together very nicely. Here, we break down this year’s Gasparilla Bowl and look at the history of this game, which was not always a pirate-themed event on the college football bowl schedule.
2023 Gasparilla Bowl Analysis
Going into this year’s Gasparilla Bowl, the UCF Knights are playing their best football, having won three of their final four games of the regular season. That got UCF to bowl eligibility, which should have them fired up going into this bowl game. UCF will also have as close to a home-field advantage as a team could hope for in a bowl game, as they play this contest in their home state of Florida.
As for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, they dropped two of their last three games in the regular season. To be fair, those losses came against Clemson and Georgia programs that are much better than Georgia Tech over the last few years. But Georgia Tech had a thoroughly unimpressive season in the ACC this year and the question will be whether the Yellow Jackets can show up with the spotlight on them.
Gasparilla Bowl History
The Gasparilla Bowl started in 2008 and has gone by the St. Petersburg Bowl and the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl in the past. The game has tie-ins with a massive amount of conferences, giving it a ton of flexibility in terms of teams that can play in it. The ACC, Big 12, SEC, AAC, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and BYU and Army are all able to participate in this game. Below is a list of previous participants and winners of the Gasparilla Bowl and games by its previous names.
| Year | Winners | Runners-Up |
| 2008 | South Florida | Memphis |
| 2009 | Rutgers | UCF |
| 2010 | Louisville | Southern Miss |
| 2011 | Marshall | FIU |
| 2012 | UCF | Ball State |
| 2013 | East Carolina | Ohio |
| 2014 | NC State | UCF |
| 2015 | Marshall | Connecticut |
| 2016 | Mississippi State | Miami (OH) |
| 2017 | Temple | FIU |
| 2018 | Marshall | South Florida |
| 2019 | UCF | Marshall |
| 2021 | UCF | Florida |
| 2022 | Wake Forest | Missouri |
Bowl Game MVPs
The Gasparilla Bowl has done its MVPs in an interesting way in the past, giving MVP awards for both the winning and losing teams. But that has since changed to only feature one game MVP. Below, we will run down the list of winning team MVPs or sole game MVPs from the history of this game, a list that includes eventual NFL players like Mohamed Sanu and Blake Bortles.
| Year | MVP | Team |
| 2008 | Matt Grothe | South Florida |
| 2009 | Mohamed Sanu | Rutgers |
| 2010 | Jeremy Wright | Louisville |
| 2011 | Aaron Dobson | Marshall |
| 2012 | Blake Bortles | UCF |
| 2013 | Vintavious Cooper | East Carolina |
| 2014 | Jacoby Brissett | NC State |
| 2015 | Deandre Reaves | Marshall |
| 2016 | Nick Fitzgerald | Mississippi State |
| 2017 | Frank Nutile | Temple |
| 2018 | Keion Davis | Marshall |
| 2019 | Dillon Gabriel | UCF |
| 2021 | Ryan O’Keefe | UCF |
| 2022 | Sam Hartman | Wake Forest |
