The 2025 bowl game is slowly coming to fruition, with Game 3 featuring two 9-3 teams.
The South Florida Bulls (9-3, 6-2 USA) will take on the Old Dominion Monarchs (9-3, 6-2 Sun Belt) in the 2025 StaffDNA Cure Bowl. The Cure Bowl will kick off on December 17 in Orlando, with both teams participating in the bowl game for the first time.
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The Cure Bowl is always held in Orlando, but games rotate between three different stadiums: Camping World Stadium in downtown Orlando, UCF’s Acrisure Bounce House, and Exploria Stadium, a football stadium downtown. 2025 will mark the seventh Cure Bowl presented by Camping World, which has also hosted the event from 2015-18, 2020 and 2024.
South Florida is seeking its third consecutive bowl victory after winning the 2023 Boca Raton Bowl and the 2024 Hawaii Bowl. However, the Bulls will have to do it without the help of head coach Alex Golesh, who left to take the Auburn job. While USF has hired Brian Hartline as head coach through 2026, current defensive line coach Kevin Patrick will serve as interim head coach for this game. The Bulls have a chance to post their third 10-win season in franchise history and first since 2017. South Florida has often had great success in the postseason, with an 8-4 record in bowl games — the third-best winning percentage among teams with 10 bowl appearances, behind only the Argentines and Marshall.
Old Dominion received many honors that it had not received in nine years. The Monarchs are targeting their first bowl win since the 2016 Bahamas Bowl and first 10-win season since 2016. They have the second-best overall record in the Sun Belt, behind sixth-year head coach Ricky Rahne’s breakout season. Old Dominion was also able to shake off Conference USA troubles, going 0-5 in conference play — losing four times to East Carolina and losing to Tulsa in the 2021 Myrtle Beach Bowl. This will be ODU’s third bowl under Raney, who is seeking his first postseason win as head coach.
This is the first announced American League vs. Sun Belt Bowl game in 2025, with Team USA defeating the Sun Belt 6-2 in the regular season series.
The 2025 Cure Bowl will kick off Wednesday, Dec. 17 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, marking the third bowl game of the season. The game begins at 5 pm ET and can be watched on ESPN.
