The 2006 Gator Bowl was a college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Louisville Cardinals at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, on January 2, 2006. The game was the final contest of the 2005 football season for each team and resulted in a 35–24 Virginia Tech victory. Virginia Tech’s win was marred by excessive penalties and unsportsmanlike conduct that resulted in the ejection of one player.
About 2006 Gator Bowl in brief
The 2006 Gator Bowl was a college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Louisville Cardinals at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, on January 2, 2006. The game was the final contest of the 2005 football season for each team and resulted in a 35–24 Virginia Tech victory. Virginia Tech’s win was marred by excessive penalties and unsportsmanlike conduct that resulted in the ejection of one player. Following the game, Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick was released from the team as a result of several incidents of misconduct, including a stomp on Louisville defender Elvis Dumervil’s leg during the game. Both teams were playing under new conference affiliations, and both teams were in their second year in the Big East Conference. Louisville won its last five games before the game and participated in the Liberty Bowl at the end of the previous season. The Hokies finished 10–2 regular season, and included wins over 15th-ranked Georgia Tech and traditional rivals Virginia and West Virginia. The Louisville Cardinals came into the 2005 season having gone 11–1 the previous year and having won their first two games in their new conference. In addition, Louisville was also entering a new conference—the Big East USA—after departing the USA following the 2004 season. This was the last year that the Gator bowl had first pick of eligible ACC teams, as contract renegotiations later resulted in it slipping to the third selection, beginning with the 2006 college football season.
Because Notre Dame was the first selection to play in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl, a BCS game was required to select the Big West Conference’s Louisville Cardinals, which, like Virginia Tech, finished second in their conference. The other half of the matchup would consist of either Notre Dame or the first choice from the BigEast Conference after that conference’s automatic BCS bid. The winner of the game would be the winner of that year’s Bowl Championship Series-run Orange Bowl game, which would be held in New York City the following year. The Gatorbowl Association has a contract with the BCS that allows it to pick the winners of the Orange Bowl without having to go through the selection process again in the next year’s BCS. In the 2005 BCS season, the game was held in San Diego, California, and was won by the University of California, Los Angeles, which was ranked No. 1 in the nation at the time of the bowl’s selection. This year’s game was played in Jacksonville and won by No. 12-ranked Virginia Tech at 12:30 p.m. EST. The winning team was the No. 15-ranked Cardinals, who were playing in their first season in the new Big East conference, after winning their first five games of the season, including the 2004 Liberty Bowl against Boise State. The Cardinals were also playing in the first year of their new league, the East Coast Conference, and finished the season with a 9–2 record and a win over Boise State in the 2004 Fiesta Bowl.
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