The Music City Bowl was canceled Sunday because a COVID-19 outbreak left Missouri unable to play Iowa in the matchup that was scheduled for Wednesday in Nashville.
It’s the second bowl called off since the postseason lineup was set Dec. 20, joining the Gasparilla Bowl. Overall, 18 bowl games scheduled to be played this season have been canceled.
Missouri athletic director Jim Sterk said the Tigers, who went 5-5 in their first year under coach Eli Drinkwitz, have had a “significant increase in positive COVID-19 tests among our student-athletes, coaches and staff” since the end of the regular season.
Missouri is the third Southeastern Conference team that has had to pull out of its bowl game because of the coronavirus, joining Tennessee and South Carolina. Army was able to replace Tennessee in the Liberty Bowl against West Virginia to salvage that game, set for Thursday in Memphis. South Carolina’s situation left the University of Alabama at Birmingham without an opponent in the Gasparilla Bowl.
Iowa (6-2) was put in the same predicament, with no short-notice replacement available to face the Big Ten’s Hawkeyes.