On Saturday, Northwestern will be the fourth Big Ten team to ever play in the history Cotton Bowl Stadium. Illinois and Purdue played SMU there in the 30's and Ohio State won the Cotton Bowl Classic in 1987. No Big Ten team has ever lost in the Cotton Bowl Stadium.
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| Photo Credit: dallascityhall.com |
Fans in this generation of college football may not understand the importance of the Cotton Bowl. Explaining why the Cotton Bowl used to be important is like trying to explain how Notre Dame used to be really good. But almost as much as my passion for Northwestern football is my love for college football history. So on the eve of the Wildcats visit to Dallas, allow me to indulge myself.
The Cotton Bowl was built in 1929 and is located within the confines of the Texas State fairgrounds. Prior to the Ticketcity Bowl, the Cotton Bowl has had five previous tenants.
SMU has played the most games in the Cotton Bowl, calling it home for most of their home games until 1978. SMU, in addition to playing in the Cotton Bowl, is infamous for receiving the "death penalty" from the NCAA for its systematic and University sanctioned player payment scheme in the 80's. After returning from the death penalty, SMU played a few years back in the Cotton Bowl before returning to campus in 2000.
The Dallas Cowboys played in the Cotton Bowl from the time of their founding in 1960 until moving to Texas Stadium in 1971. The Cotton Bowl also hosts two annual rivalry games, the Red River Rivalry (Shootout) between Texas and Oklahoma; and the State Fair Classic between Grambling State and Prairie View A&M.
But most importantly, the Cotton Bowl hosted, well, the Cotton Bowl. Since 1937, the Stadium hosted the annual New Years day Bowl game until this season, when the game has been moved to Cowboys Stadium and will be played on January 7. The stadium has hosted more bowl games than any other arena except for the Rose Bowl.
For decades, the Cotton Bowl, along with the Rose, Sugar, and Orange, was one of the Big Four New Years Bowl games. Back then there were five major conferences, the Big Ten (Rose), Pac 10 (Rose), SEC (Sugar), Big 8 (Orange) and the old Southwest Conference, which sent its annual champion to the Cotton Bowl. The rest of college football was made up of less significant leagues and an army of powerful independents, which included Penn State, Miami, Pitt, and Notre Dame.
As a history lesson here the old Big 8 was comprised of what we now (at least for today) call the Big 12 North along with Oklahoma and OK State. The Southwest Conference was made up of the four Texas schools in the Big 12 South, along with Houston, Rice, TCU, SMU, and Arkansas. Much like the recent storm of realignment, it is the movement of these teams which changed college football and lead to the demise of the Cotton Bowl game.
The Cotton Bowl game pitted the Southwest conference Champion against an at large team, usually the runner-up in the SEC or the Big 8; but sometimes it scored an independent. It was one of THE games to see on New Years Day. The true heyday of the Cotton Bowl game was in the late 50's and 60's. In 1959, an Ernie Sims led Syracuse team beat Texas to win the National Title. In 1963, Texas beat #2 Navy and Roger Staubach to finish #1. In 1969 Texas beat Notre Dame to win the National Title; one year later, Notre Dame kept #1 Texas from winning the National Title. It staying high on the college football radar through the mid-nineties. In each year from 1988 to 1993, the Cotton Bowl matched two top ten teams against eachother.
The demise of the Cotton Bowl game aligns with the failure of the Southwest Conference and the rise of the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. The Fiesta Bowl, at the time, was not aligned with any conference and had the freedom to select whomever it wished. Sometimes the Fiesta Bowl hit the jackpot such as the 1988 game between undefeated Notre Dame and West Virginia -- two independents. The growing popularity of this game, along with the exploding population of Arizona, started to threaten the Big Four Bowl Games.
When SMU was given the death penalty, the SWC received the first in a series of blows. SMU was not permitted to field a team in 1987 and elected not to play in 1988. The SWC only had eight teams in these two years. The conference was already top-heavy, with Texas, Texas A&M and Arkansas dominating the league.
When Arkansas left for the expanding SEC after the 1991 season the league was left with two major powers, five also rans, and SMU, who could barely field a competitive team. The SEC had expanded to 12 teams and was taking advantage of the NCAA rule that permitted a championship game to be played. Texas and A&M saw dollar signs and no future in the SWC.
In 1995 the SWC played its final football season and sent its final Champion to the Cotton Bowl. Texas, A&M, Tech, and Baylor joined the Big 8 to form the Big 12. Rice, SMU, Houston and TCU were left to scrap for mid-major attention, despite being among the big boys for decades.
But the biggest blow for the old stadium in Dallas was that the Big 12 pledged its champion to play in the Fiesta Bowl, forsaking both the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. The Orange Bowl managed to sign on with the up and coming ACC, which had recently brought on Florida State as an anchor team. The Cotton Bowl was left holding a soggy bag.
The Cotton Bowl has since settled in with an SEC and Big 12 match up. But the game has now moved out of the old Stadium and is no longer a New Years Day game. It is a ghost of its former glory -- a discarded result of politics and power.
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