It featured the West Virginia Mountaineers from the Big 12 Conference against the Big East Conference co-champion Syracuse Orange and was the final game of the 2012 NCAA Division I FBS football season for both teams.
However, after winning their final two games of the season over the Iowa State Cyclones and Kansas Jayhawks, the Mountaineers would rebound to a 4–5 conference record.
With a 5–2 conference record the Orange became one of four Big East co-champions along with the Louisville Cardinals, Rutgers Scarlet Knights, and Cincinnati Bearcats.
This was the Orange's second Pinstripe Bowl; in the inaugural 2010 game they had defeated the Kansas State Wildcats by a score of 36–34 after a controversial excessive celebration call led to the Wildcats missing what would have been the game-tying two-point conversion.
It was also the Orange's final game as a member of the Big East before they joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2013.