2016 Cactus Bowl (January)

The 2016 Cactus Bowl was a post-season American college football bowl game played on January 2, 2016 at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. This was the twenty-seventh edition of the Cactus Bowl, although only the second played under that name. Sponsored by the Motel 6 chain of budget motels, the game was officially known as the Motel 6 Cactus Bowl.

The bowl featured the West Virginia Mountaineers of the Big 12 Conference against the Arizona State Sun Devils of the Pac-12 Conference, and was the concluding game of the season for both teams. It began at 8:15 p.m. MST and aired on ESPN. It was one of the 2015–16 bowl games that concluded the 2015 FBS football season and was the final bowl game prior to the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship game.

Motel 6 took over as title sponsor of the game replacing TicketCity, who had served as sponsor of the previous year's game.^[3]

The 2016 Cactus Bowl marked the game's return to Chase Field, its home from 2000 until 2005, after a ten-year absence during which the game was played at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. The move was made due to a reconstruction project at Sun Devil Stadium that rendered the facility unusable during the college football offseason and would see Chase Field host the Cactus Bowl through 2018. West Virginia won the game by a final score of 43-42.