As the Central Michigan football team waited for a bid to a bowl game, head coach John Bonamego wanted to get a sense of where his players wanted to play their last game of the season.

So he conducted an “informal poll.”

“There was an overwhelming majority of guys that wanted Detroit,” Bonamego said. “They want to be able to play in front of their family and they are excited about our students being there.”

Those Chippewas got their wish when CMU accepted a bid to the 2015 Quick Lane Bowl at 5 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 28 at Ford Field.

Serving as a backup to the Atlantic Coast Conference, which could not fill the game with a bowl-eligible team, Bonamego’s team will face Big Ten member school Minnesota (5-7, 2-6 Big Ten).

CMU will receive a payout of $250,000 from the Mid-American Conference and 3,500 tickets for participation in the game.

“It’s great for our team with so many players from the state of Michigan and the southeast part of the state,” Bonamego said. “It’s a great opportunity for us.”

Bonamego said he found out that CMU would be going to the Quick Lane Bowl while he was at the CMU wrestling meet today. He said the Idaho Potato Bowl and Boca Raton Bowl were the other options CMU was most likely to go to.

Ford Field is familiar territory for Bonamego, who was an assistant coach with the Detroit Lions before taking the CMU job in February.

“It’ll be great to get back,” he said. “It’ll be neat to be back in that stadium.”

Four of CMU’s last six bowl games have been played at Ford Field. Seven of the program’s last nine postseason games, including conference championships, have been played at the home of the Detroit Lions.

The matchup will be the second consecutive year CMU will play in a bowl game. The Chippewas have not played in a bowl game during back-to-back seasons since 2008 and 2009.

Senior center Nick Beamish played at Ford Field during his freshman year at CMU in 2012 and said it will be a fitting end to his career as a Chippewa.

“I think I had like 30 family members there,” Beamish said. “My family is happy about it.”

Quarterback Cooper Rush is just happy CMU’s bowl game will be played indoors.

“It definitely helps,” Rush said. “You don’t have to worry about wind or a wet ball and stuff like that. Quarterbacks will take that.”

Athletics Director Dave Heeke said he does not expect CMU to make a major profit off a bowl game closer to home.

“This isn’t a windfall, by any means,” Heeke said. “It’s a great experience that we are able to take advantage of in a regional way. But it still has expenses. The payout for this bowl is lower than it was for the Bahamas Bowl.”

Last year, the MAC gave CMU $450,000 to travel to Nassau and compete in the inaugural Popeye’s Bahamas Bowl.

“(This year) it’ll be a very manageable bowl experience from an expense side,” Heeke said.

In 2013, the Detroit Lions created their own bowl game to replace the Motor City Bowl, which traditionally featured a MAC team playing a team from a larger conference.

This year, the bowl was supposed to feature teams from the ACC and Big Ten.

“When we can play a bowl game in our backyard and allow an opportunity for our student body to see that and be a part of it, that’s pretty powerful,” Heeke said. “It’s not about the economics. That’s about program development. I look at it as a real positive.”

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