Before I get off this football kick I’ve been on lately, I thought we should talk a little more about bowl games. I remember as a kid, looking forward to the bowl games. A trip to a bowl game was “earned,” as a reward for a good season. And back then, it was a big deal for the fans to attend the bowl game that their favorite team was playing in. The fans usually made it a “vacation” of sorts and planned on spending at least a few days in the city that hosted the game. The games were all in cities with good weather around the first of the year, so that made it all the more enticing.
The Rose Bowl was, and still is, I think, the “granddaddy of them all.” Everyone wanted to play in the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl game started to be played annually in 1916 and before long, other cities throughout the country began to see the promotional value of such a game in promoting tourism.
By 1940, there were five major bowl games, although I only remember hearing mostly about four. The Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl all began playing in 1935 — the Cotton Bowl began in 1937. I don’t remember hearing so much about the Sun Bowl when I was growing up.
When the bowls first started, commercial air travel was pretty much non-existent so enough time had to be given for fans and family to travel to the games. When football season ended in late November or early December, several weeks were allowed for travel and bowl games were played on, or near, New Year’s Day. In fact, up until the 1950s all bowl games were played on New Year’s Day. By 1990 there were 19 bowl games and only the “major” bowls were played on New Year’s Day. I read that there are now 35 bowl games which begin play in mid-December and continue through early January.
The University of Alabama has played in the most (57) bowl games and Nebraska holds the record for the longest consecutive streak of bowl game appearances with 35 straight from 1969 to 2005. Oklahoma is the only team that has appeared in all five of the BCS bowl games.
So that’s it for college football for this year — on to the Super Bowl.
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