BOCA RATON, FL (Boca Post) (Copyright © 2025) — The University of Louisville football team has accepted a bid to the Boca Raton Bowl and will face Toledo on Dec. 23 at 2 p.m. at Flagler Credit Union Stadium on the campus of Florida Atlantic University, according to 247Sports. It’s a slight curveball for the Cardinals, who did not land in one of the usual Atlantic Coast Conference bowl tie-ins and instead were slotted into Boca Raton’s game.
The trip to South Florida caps Louisville’s fifth straight season ending in a bowl. The Cardinals finished 8-4, closing the regular season with a 41-0 rout of rival Kentucky. They opened 7-1 before dropping three straight, then steadied themselves with that shutout of the Wildcats to finish the year.
Head coach Jeff Brohm said his team is ready for a change of scenery and some warm weather after a grind of a season.
“I know our team will be excited to get down there for some warm weather and basically a paradise for football,” Brohm told 247Sports.
For Brohm’s family, the Boca Raton trip is more than just another bowl destination. He said his wife and daughter already knew the city well from his previous stop at Florida Atlantic.
“I know my wife and daughter, it’s one of their favorite vacation spots to be honest with you, they go to the Boca Raton Resort a lot since I was down there as an assistant years ago with Florida Atlantic,” Brohm said. “Ever since, they have had a love for the area, so when they found out we were going, my wife sent me a text that said, ‘God really loves me’. We are excited to go to a great destination.”
Louisville comes in with plenty of postseason experience. The program has appeared in 27 bowl games all-time and carries a 13-13-1 record in those contests. Under Brohm, the Cardinals lost to USC in the Holiday Bowl during his first season, then bounced back to beat Washington last year in the Sun Bowl. Brohm is 6-2 overall in his head-coaching career in bowl games.
This won’t be his first brush with the Boca Raton Bowl, either. In 2016, his Western Kentucky team earned a bid here and beat Memphis 51-31. By kickoff, though, Brohm had already accepted the Purdue job and did not coach in that game.
The Cardinals have had to manage injuries late in the season, and some questions linger about who will be available against Toledo. Wide receiver Chris Bell and running backs Isaac Brown and Duke Watson have already been out and are not expected to play in Boca. As of now, no players listed on Louisville’s two-deep depth chart have publicly said they will sit out the bowl game, but the staff is still monitoring the roster heading into preparations.
Toledo arrives with the same 8-4 record after winning its final four games and going 6-2 in the Mid-American Conference. The Rockets will be without their head coach; Jason Candle accepted the job at UConn this week and is not expected to coach the bowl.
On the administrative side, Louisville’s path to Boca took a while to come into focus. Athletic director Josh Heird said the program spent much of the weekend unsure where it would end up as the ACC bowl picture shifted.
Heird said that even as late as Saturday night and into Sunday afternoon, “Louisville had no idea where we were going,” as the bowl dominoes fell. Miami’s selection into the College Football Playoff was one of the key moves that forced changes across the ACC’s bowl lineup, he said, and the rest took time to sort out.
“Miami got into the CFP, and it was just that domino effect from there on,” Heird told 247Sports. “And I think that’s why it took some time. We’re excited to be playing in this bowl game, and I think we landed in a really good spot. We are looking forward to getting down there and playing a couple of days before Christmas.”
For Boca Raton, the matchup brings another Power Five program to the FAU campus and another wave of visiting fans to Glades Road just before the holiday break. For Louisville and Toledo, it’s one more chance to close an 8-4 season on a high note—this time under the December sun in Boca.
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