Since 1989, the Cactus Bowl has been an annual college football bowl game that takes place in the state of Arizona.
According to Sports Illustrated, the Cactus Bowl has been renamed to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. The sponsorship has often changed over the years, as the Cactus Bowl was formerly known as the Copper Bowl, Insight Bowl, Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl and Cheez-It Bowl.
Prior to 2006, the game featured teams from the Pac-10, Western Athletic Conference, Big 12 and old Big East conferences. It’s primarily featured matchups between the Big Ten and Big 12 recently, although it included a few Pac-12 and Mountain West teams sprinkled in.
However, it’s now the only bowl game with tie-ins to the Big Ten and Big 12 conferences. This is expected to remain the common theme through the 2025-26 season.
News: The Cactus Bowl is now the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, Fiesta executive tells @SINow.
It will be the only bowl game pitting Big Ten and Big 12 teams.
A brief story on finding a title sponsor amid a pandemic – https://t.co/YKV3Xm0BH6 pic.twitter.com/sTiIOUUbWT
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) October 22, 2020
TCU, West Virginia, Baylor, Kansas State and Oklahoma State have each competed in this particular bowl game over the last few years.
Texas has been widely projected to compete in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl this season. If this were to come to fruition, it’d surely be a disappointment to a talented Longhorns squad.
In ESPN’s latest bowl projections following Week 7, Texas was projected to face Nebraska or Purdue in the newly renamed bowl game. The only other Big 12 program to fall to a lower bowl game on the latter was Baylor.
There’s certainly not much optimism surrounding Texas’ postseason outlook after back-to-back conference losses to unranked teams.