In 1972, Lavell Edwards became head coach of a BYU football program that had never been to a bowl game. Over the next four years he averaged 6-plus wins per season. From 1976-78 it jumped to nine wins. In the five-year period of 1979-83, Edwards won 11 games four times. The 1984 BYU football team […]
The 1984 Cotton Bowl was one of the most memorable in the long history of the Dallas-based bowl game. Second-ranked Texas was upset by Georgia in a game that took on even greater significance by the time the night had ended. Here’s a look back on the road the Longhorns and Bulldogs took through the […]
Auburn had a breakthrough year in the 1983 college football season, winning the SEC championship for third-year coach Pat Dye and getting the automatic berth to the Sugar Bowl. Michigan was making its first appearance in the New Orleans game. Here’s a look back at how both the Tigers and Wolverines got to January 2 […]
UCLA and Illinois came to the 1984 Rose Bowl with two very different heritages and two paths through the 1983 college football season that were quite different. The Bruins were the defending Rose Bowl champions, but had struggled to a 6-4-1 record in 1983. The Illini hadn’t been to Pasadena since 1963, but arrived this […]
Ohio State came into the 1984 Fiesta Bowl on a low note, having finished third in the Big Ten and losing to Michigan. Pitt came to the Fiesta Bowl with every reason to feel good about themselves, having gone 8-2-1 in their first year post-Dan Marino. Let’s take a look back on the road these […]
The nation’s top two Catholic football-playing universities, Notre Dame and Boston College, meet on a reasonably regular basis. But when they played at the 1983 Liberty Bowl it was only the second time they’d met on the field. Here’s a look back on how the Jesuit schools found their way to Memphis in late December. […]
The 1983 Sugar Bowl was a landmark game in college football history. Penn State and Georgia played a national championship battle that featured two of the country’s great running backs in Curt Warner and Heisman winner Herschel Walker, both with good NFL careers ahead of them. And above all, it brought the legendary Joe Paterno […]
The 1983 Cotton Bowl was a what-might-have-been game. Pitt and SMU had reached the 1-2 spots in the national rankings by the end of October in the 1982 college football season. But each team, particularly Pitt had some disappointment in November and while the Cotton Bowl was still a good game between two highly ranked […]
The 1983 Orange Bowl didn’t have national implications, the way its predecessors often had or its famous immediate successor would. But they still produced an exciting, if sloppy game with Nebraska and LSU. GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS Start reading today. Nebraska had yet to win the Orange Bowl under head coach Tom Osborne. Given that Osborne […]
The 1983 Rose Bowl was a rematch between UCLA and Michigan, something that was a rarity in college football before the age of longer schedules and conference championship games. It was also two teams with different recent histories. UCLA came into the 1982 college football season having missed out on Pasadena each of the previous […]
The Fiesta Bowl had just become a major bowl following the 1981 season when they moved their game to January 1. The game following the 1982 college football season represented a modest step back for the bowl in some ways, when they paired up Arizona State and Oklahoma. Nonetheless, the 1983 Fiesta Bowl still brought […]
The 1982 Orange Bowl saw the completion of Clemson’s Cinderella journey for a national championship and Nebraska finally get some separation from Oklahoma. Here’s a look back on the journey Clemson and Nebraska took through the 1981 college football season before finally meeting on New Year’s Night in Miami.