Central Michigan and Northwestern to play in the 2025 GameAbove Sports Bowl™ at Ford Field

Detroit, MI – The Central Michigan Chippewas will take on the Northwestern Wildcats at Ford Field on December 26, 2025, as the GameAbove Sports Bowl™ returns to Detroit. The game will broadcast on ESPN and ESPN+ at 1:00 PM (ET).

Central Michigan (CMU) finished their regular season with a 7-5 overall record, finishing in 5^th place in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) with a 5-3 league record. After winning two of their last three regular-season games, this will be the first time since 2021 that the Chippewas became bowl eligible and will be Central Michigan’s sixth bowl game appearance in Detroit, with the last coming a decade ago in 2015 vs. Minnesota. First-year head coach Matt Drinkall led the Chippewas to their first bowl game in four years, becoming only the fifth coach to achieve this at CMU in his first year.

Northwestern (NW) finished their regular season with a 6-6 overall record and finished in 11^th place in the Big Ten Conference with a 4-5 league record. Northwestern has won five consecutive bowl games, which ties the third-longest streak in the nation, only trailing Minnesota with eight and Ohio with six. Northwestern will travel to Detroit for the second time for a bowl game, with its first tip coming all the way back in 2003 in the Motor City Music Bowl, where they lost to Bowling Green, 28-24. 

Northwestern has bragging rights, as they are 1-0 all-time against Central Michigan, with the lone meeting occurring in 2010, where the Wildcats won 30-25 in Evanston, IL. However, it will not be a walk in the park this time around, as Central Michigan plays just over 2 hours away from Detroit and has a whopping 40 players who are from the state of Michigan. Although Northwestern is the designated home team for the game, CMU will have a home-game feel on Friday.