College Football's Last Great New Year's Day

As of this morning, it has now been 17 years to the day when college football lost its innocence. New Year’s Day 1994 took place on a Saturday – fitting for a sport that become synonymous with autumn Saturdays and tradition. It was the last time college football, and the powers that run the sport, could claim they cared about their athletes without an entire room laugh at the hypocrisy.

There was no BCS and no ‘true’ national champion for the 1993 college football regular season, only a loosely defined Bowl Coalition that was hopelessly flawed in every way possible. But the Rose Bowl was Pac-10 vs. Big Ten, period. The Big 8 champion played in the Orange Bowl. The SEC champion played in the Sugar Bowl. The Southwest Conference champion played in the Cotton Bowl.

Success in college football was defined by two things – winning your conference and/or playing on New Year’s Day. Playing in a New Year’s Day bowl was the equivalent of a BCS bowl in today’s era. Except the games wouldn’t be spread out over 10 days – they would be spread out over 10 hours.

The 1993 college football season was one of the more epic in the decade. Notre Dame defeated Florida State in the Game of the Century – no regular season game since has been watched by more people. The Irish followed up the win with its legendary loss to Glenn Foley and Boston College. West Virginia completed a remarkable undefeated regular season, dethroning Miami. Arizona and its famed Desert Swarm defense made national headlines. Nebraska believed it was poised to finally win a national title for Tom Osborne. Wisconsin was heading to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 31 years and playing the home standing UCLA Bruins.

For the next 12 hours, the traditions of college football would go out in a blaze of glory that ended up being, quite frankly, the best day of football in my lifetime. I was 11 years old and, thanks to New Year’s Day falling on a Saturday, I knew I could stay up late to watch all the football. On a scale of 1 to 10, my excitement level was a 23.

It began in the Fiesta Bowl. Because the Rose Bowl agreement with its partner conferences included a clause preventing conference teams from competing with it, the Fiesta Bowl between Arizona and Miami was moved to earlier in the day, 1pm on NBC. Sun Devil Stadium was sold out and they saw a historic game – the Wildcats and its Desert Swarm defense shut out Miami.

It could be argued that the 1994 Fiesta Bowl marked the end of the U as we knew it. They would go 10-1 in the 1994 season, but lost to Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, probation would soon follow and the team wouldn’t reemerge as national powers until the 2000s under drastically different circumstances. Arizona was the first team in nearly a decade to embarrass Miami on a national stage. The day was just beginning.

The start of the Rose Bowl brought with it a shock that is still being discussed today – tens of thousands of Wisconsin fans who flew to the Rose Bowl thinking they had tickets but they in actuality had counterfeits. Google “Rose Bowl Wisconsin” and you’ll see news stories today warning Badgers fans to avoid being duped again. The Rose Bowl game itself marked the end of UCLA’s dominance in the Pac-10 – they’ve been back only once since – and the beginning of the current Wisconsin run. The strong Badgers program you’ll watch take the field later today was born, in some cases quite literally, in 1993.

But I wasn’t watching the Rose Bowl game. My father is a Notre Dame alum. We were watching Notre Dame battle Texas A&M in the last great Cotton Bowl. The Southwest Conference would send only one more champion to the game – a woeful Texas Tech that would be drilled by USC the following year. The Cotton Bowl had been moved to late afternoon by NBC and the network was rewarded with one of the best games in the bowl’s history.

There was more than a little background. The Irish were 10-1 and its fans believed they should win the national title over a one-loss Florida State team since the Irish beat the Seminoles. It was also the third Cotton Bowl matchup between the teams, with the Aggies beating the Tim Brown-led team in 1988 and Rick Mirer leading an easy 28-3 victory the year prior. It was the rubber match. The two teams went back and forth in classic fashion until the Irish finally pulled out a 28-24 victory.

My father, ever embodying class, said, “Good game R.C.” to the television as NBC lingered on a shot of a defeated and dejected A&M coach R.C. Slocum. With the notable exception of the 1998 Big XII championship victory over Kansas State, Texas A&M hasn’t reached those heights since. Neither has Notre Dame.

The stage was now set for two primetime showdowns to crown a national champion. In the Sugar Bowl, undefeated and #3 West Virginia aimed to make a statement against SEC champion Florida. There was a statement made in that game…by the Gators. Florida demolished West Virginia 41-7. It was Florida’s first Sugar Bowl victory ever. Yes, the vaunted Florida program was not the juggernaut you see today for its entire history. No, the juggernaut you see today was born on New Year’s Night in 1994 – Florida has claimed the mantle of SEC’s poster team from Alabama and they haven’t relinquished yet. As for West Virginia, their inability to finally win a national title has lingered until just last week, as coach Bill Stewart was pushed aside because, as their AD said, he couldn’t win a national championship.

The main event of the evening took place in the Orange Bowl between undefeated Nebraska and one-loss Florida State. There were storylines everywhere. Both Tom Osborne and Bobby Bowden were certified Hall of Famers with one glaring omission on their resumes – winning a national title. The Seminoles were led by Heisman winner Charlie Ward. Nebraska was a 16-point underdog, the memory of so many previous Orange Bowl beatdowns fresh in everyone’s mind. Heck, just a year prior Florida State had whipped Nebraska in the same bowl game. History, most assumed, would repeat itself.

Instead, the Orange Bowl was treated to arguably its last classic – the BCS has been unkind to the prior king of bowl games. In a defensive battle and an emotion struggle, the teams battled late into the night – thanks to television and the game’s notoriously long halftime show, the game ended at some point past 1 a.m. The ending is a famous one with Bowden getting a premature Gatorade bath, a second being put back on the clock and Nebraska’s last chance field goal attempt sailing wide left. Florida State had prevailed 18-16.

The next morning, the polls came out and confirmed Florida State as the #1 team in the country with Notre Dame at #2. Yes, the team that beat Florida State ended up behind them in the polls. I remember my disappointment that Sunday morning about Notre Dame finishing #2. But I also remembering being thoroughly satisfied and over the moon about the previous day’s games.

When people ask me why I love bowl games, my thoughts immediately turn back to that New Year’s Day. I can vividly remember everything about that day, including where I positioned my bean bag chair in front of the television and how the food tasted – my Dad would get finger foods like little hot dogs and shrimp cocktail for New Year’s, a tradition I’ve continued.

I remember the images. The sight of Arizona dancing on the field as they whipped Miami. The thousands of Wisconsin fans forced to watch the Rose Bowl on large screen televisions. The Cotton Bowl, the first on natural grass, played under the cover of darkness for the first time. The speed of Florida as they ran by West Virginia. The grit of Nebraska. The respect my father had for Tom Osborne. The way the Orange Bowl field managed to cover every player in grass stains. The look on Bobby Bowden’s face as he was told about the extra added second. The look on Osborne’s face when that final kick sailed wide.

It is amazing to look back and see how much that day impacted college football for the next decade. Powers such as UCLA, Notre Dame, Texas A&M and Miami would never be the same. New powers such as Wisconsin, Florida and Florida used the day to cement its status. And one power, Nebraska, served notice that it would no longer be subject to annual bowl game beatings from Florida schools.

The day was perfect, maybe in part because it never happened again. The next year, New Year’s Day fell on Sunday meaning most games would be played on Monday, Jan. 2, 1995. The contrarian Orange Bowl, sensing opportunity, played its game on New Year’s Night and effectively crowned Nebraska as the national champion before the other games could be played.

By the 1995 season, the dreaded Bowl Alliance took shape – moving one of the big bowl games to New Year’s Eve and another to Jan 2. New Year’s Day was effectively ruined. I remember something vividly from that year too – the shocking number of empty seats when Florida State played Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. College football had gone down a different path and fans weren’t happy about it.

On New Year’s Day 1994, 70,000 fans packed the Cotton Bowl. 72,000 watched the Fiesta Bowl. The Sugar Bowl attracted 75,000. The Rose Bowl had more than 101,000 fans. The Orange Bowl fit 80,000+ and drew an insane 18.0 TV rating. In one day, nearly 400,000 fans packed the stadiums for five bowl games.

It was everything college football was ever about. The pageantry, the traditions, the exciting matchups, the thrilling storylines and the New Year’s Day holiday.

On New Year’s Day 2011, 7-5 Texas Tech will play 7-5 Northwestern at a half-empty Cotton Bowl. The only game on broadcast television will be a matchup between 7-5 Florida and 7-5 Penn State that will likely not be sold out. The evening’s matchup between UConn and Oklahoma will be a technical sellout, but there could be up to 15,000 unsold tickets from the two schools’ allotment. The Rose Bowl will not feature a Pac-10 team for the third time in ten years, following a half-century of Pac-10/Big Ten matchups. The Orange and Sugar Bowls won’t be played on New Year’s Day and the national champion won’t be crowned for another nine days.

When people talk about how the BCS has ruined college football, they focus on the national championship. In truth, that’s the only thing the BCS has managed to get right, producing only one split national championships in its history.

Unfortunately, what we have lost due to the BCS, we may never get back unless the powers at be wake up. There was a time when college football produced the best sporting day of the year each and every year.

I wanted to write, “a time not too long ago,” but 17 years is a long time.

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