MTSU AD Chris Massaro has a Message for Fans

Dear Blue Raider Faithful,

On December 3, the MTSU football team eagerly accepted an invitation to play in the Camellia Bowl on Saturday, December 16 vs. our old Sun Belt Conference rival Arkansas State. The game is located in Montgomery, a short four hour drive from Murfreesboro.

The Blue Raiders now have been invited to seven bowl games in our Division IA history, and this is by far the closest bowl game we will have attended. It is vital for future bowl selection and for the growth of our football program that we have a great showing of fan support in Montgomery. One of the deciding factors of receiving a bowl bid this year is that ESPN, who owns the Camellia Bowl, thought we could put fans in the stands. In fact, in an informal email explaining our selection they wrote in part… “Please move mountains to get fans and busloads of students to Montgomery…. Need your fans to take over the city. No reason your fan base can’t drive the 3.5 hours down the road.”

It is important for us to leave a strong impression of incredible support for this bowl. Your best means of support is to purchase bowl tickets and make plans with your family and friends to attend. It is an incredible feeling to see fellow Blue Raiders at the Bowl site dressed in blue knowing our fans outnumber the opposition and to celebrate the bowl win together. If you just can’t make the trip, and again, we strongly urge you to do so, we ask that you still purchase as many tickets as possible to help support the cause.  We will take the unused tickets and donate them to Montgomery area charities through the Camellia Bowl. We need to minimally sell out our initial allotment of 2,500 tickets and need to be in position to be asking for more.

We invite you to check our Bowl Central page on GoBlueRaiders.com for updates and fan events including our alumni/BRAA tailgate where we can watch the men’s basketball team beat Auburn beginning at 5 p.m. We also have two pep rallies scheduled – one on Friday night and the other on Saturday to coincide with our tailgate. This bowl site is your go to source for all information related to the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl.

Thank you for your continued support of the Blue Raiders and we will see you in Montgomery.

Chris Massaro
Director of Athletics
Middle Tennessee State University