Not to be confused with the Crispix Bowl, which is also sponsored by Cheez-It starting in 2022. For the Arizona bowl game sponsored by Cheez-It in 2018 and 2019, see Guaranteed Rate Bowl.

For the similarly named stadium, see Camping World Stadium. The Cheez-It Bowl is an annual college football bowl game that is played in Orlando, Florida, at Camping World Stadium. The bowl was founded in 1990 by Raycom and was originally played at Joe Robbie Stadium outside the city of Miami. In 2001, the bowl changed hands, and was relocated to Orlando.

The bowl was known as the Tangerine Bowl, a historical moniker that was the original title of the game now known as the Citrus Bowl, for three playings. What is now the Cheez-It Bowl was sprung from a desire to hold a second bowl game in the Miami area. It would be an accompaniment to the long-established and well-known Orange Bowl, and would showcase the brand new stadium in the area that was built in 1987. Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga quickly joined forces with bowl organizers and brought in Blockbuster Video, which he owned at the time, as title sponsor.

The New Year’s Day experiment was short lived as the organizers of the more established Orange Bowl received permission to move their game into Joe Robbie Stadium beginning in 1996. Before gaining Blockbuster Entertainment as the corporate sponsor for the inaugural event, the game was tentatively referred to as the Sunshine Classic. This was also in part due to the Florida high school football championship games being held at the stadium shortly before the bowls. In 2009, rainy weather turned the stadium’s grass field into a muddly, sloppy, quagmire for both bowl games. In 2009, the bowl announced that the Big East was to be one of the tie-in conferences for four years starting in 2010, with the bowl having the option of selecting Notre Dame once during the four years. Since 2014, the game features the second pick from the ACC after the New Year’s Six bowls make their picks—usually the losing team from the ACC Football Championship Game, or one of the division runners-up—against the third pick from the Big 12.

For the annual college football game that was called the Tangerine Bowl from 1947 to 1982, see Citrus Bowl. All rankings are taken from the AP Poll prior to the game being played. January of the following calendar year. The American record includes appearances of the Big East Conference, as The American retains the charter of the original Big East, following its 2013 realignment. The Big Eight Conference dissolved after the 1995 season.