Football

After winning its second Big Ten West title in three seasons, No. 14 Northwestern will have a chance to add another trophy to its cabinet at the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, 2020.

The No. 14 Wildcats (6-2, 6-1 Big Ten) will Auburn (6-4, 6-4 SEC) at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida. Kickoff is set for 12 p.m. CST.

NU is coming off a disappointing 22-10 loss Saturday in the Big Ten Championship GAme to Ohio State. The Cats won six games in the regular season, completing a worst-to-first turnaround to become the fourth Big Ten team to make multiple conference championship games.

Three of Auburn’s four losses this season have come to top-10 ranked teams, including No. 1 Alabama and No. 5 Texas A&M in two of their final three games of the season. After defeating Mississippi State to round out their season, the Tigers fired head coach Gus Malzahn. Malzahn was 68-34 over eight seasons.

NU has played in the Citrus Bowl once before in 1997. In the final game of Pat Fitzgerald’s career, the Cats lost 48-28 to a Peyton Manning-led Tennessee squad. Manning was the star of the game, throwing for 408 yards and four touchdowns on 27-for-39 passing.

This will be NU’s fifth bowl in six seasons. The Cats have won their previous three bowl games — 2016 Pinstripe Bowl, 2017 Music City Bowl and 2018 Holiday Bowl.

Fitzgerald is 4-5 in bowl games as a coach. After Saturday’s game, he said he hopes the team will be able to send the senior class off on a high note.

“They’re going to have to lead us again as we get ready for a couple weeks from now the privilege to represent the Big Ten in whatever bowl game destination that we get the privilege to go to,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ve never been four-time bowl champions in a row so we’ve got a lot to play for.”

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