The Brigham Young University (BYU) Cougars will play an American Athletic Conference opponent in the inaugural Miami Beach Bowl this winter.

Unnamed sources confirmed to ESPN's Brett McMurphy BYU's involvement in the bowl game. The ACC created and owns the Miami Beach Bowl, which will be played before Christmas at Marlins Park, the home stadium for the Miami Marlins.

BYU is independent of any conference in college football, as are schools like Navy, Army and Notre Dame. It is not clear how the AAC opponent will be chosen, but the top five teams last season were UCF, Louisville, Cincinnati, Houston and Southern Methodist.

McMurphy reported the Miami Beach Bowl was originally supposed to go to the AAC and Conference USA. The AAC was supposed to play in the Bahamas Bowl, which the C-USA recently purchased. The AAC gave the C-USA its place in the Miami Beach Bowl in exchange for a spot in the Bahamas Bowl.

The C-USA will send a team to the Bahamas Bowl at least four times, between 2014 and 2019 and possibly six times overall. The other team will come from the Mid-American Conference.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, BYU will play a bowl game in Florida. The only other times when the team has played such a game was the Citrus Bowl in 1985 and the Tangerine Bowl in 1976, both held in Orlando.

Combined with regular season games in Florida, BYU is 0-5 in the state. The Cougars will get their first chance to break that streak when they visit UCF Oct. 9, a game nationally televised on ESPN.

As an independent team, BYU has to make bowl game commitments every year and also must win six games to play in those games. They have made bowl games appearances in each of the last nine seasons under head coach Bronco Mendenhall.