Sports Then and Now

Vince Young's winning touchdown run in the 2006 Rose Bowl is just one of many memorable moments in the history of college bowl games.

Bowl season begins this Saturday with the New Mexico Bowl and ends January 7th with the BCS Championship Game between Texas and Alabama.

In all, there will be 34 postseason games this year, a record for most bowl games in a year.
Even though the amount of bowl games is getting absurd, many of college football’s greatest moments have occurred during the bowl season.

So before the three-week odyssey of bowl games begin, here are the 25 most memorable college football bowl moments:

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25. 1996 Fiesta Bowl – On the final play of the third quarter, Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier breaks seven tackles on his way for a 75-yard touchdown. The run is the signature play in the Cornhuskers’ 62-24 rout of the Florida Gators for the national championship.

24. 1985 Orange Bowl – With 14 minutes remaining in the game and the score tied at 14, Oklahoma kicker Tim Lasher kicks a 22-yard field goal which is nullified by an illegal procedure penalty on Oklahoma. Unaware of the flag, the Sooner Schooner rolls on to the field drawing another penalty on Oklahoma. The 20 yards in penalties force Lasher to attempt a 42-yard field goal, which is blocked by Washington safety Tim Peoples. The Huskies would go on to win the game 28-17. Read the rest of this entry →

Why, you ask, would Zultan object to adding another team to the Big Ten? Well, as the self-appointed prognosticator for the Big Ten Conference, there is his reputation to consider.

Obviously, it has been a constant source of embarrassment to the sagacious seer that the Big Ten already has 11 teams.

When the Big Eight Conference realigned, it became the Big 12. Why isn’t the Big Ten known as the Big 11? This weighs heavily upon the great one’s already overtaxed mind. Was it simply that odd numbers are bad luck? Was it to skimp on making new signage?

How does it look for a conference that prides itself on its academic standards and its ethics to promulgate such an obvious misstatement—to have 11 teams, yet only acknowledge 10?

That is like hiding one of your children in the attic. For years, of course, it was Northwestern shivering up there.

But the Wildcats are no longer the odd man out. This year the name of the shunned team is debatable. Zultan, however, believes that Big Blue is being cloistered from view. Read the rest of this entry →

The Iowa Hawkeyes will look for a different result than in their last Orange Bowl appearance.

This is the ghost of Orange Bowls past—specifically 2003, when the Iowa Hawkeyes met the USC Trojans….

In case you have not heard this before, be advised that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Study your lessons well, Iowa Hawkeyes, before you head off to another Orange Bowl contest.

Simply put, the lesson to be learned is this—”Speed Kills.” You either contain it or it hits you like a Mack truck, leaving you flattened—road kill diem.

Think back…recall the hope and promise of the season…

It was January 2003 and Iowa had an amazing 11-1 record, ranked No. 3 in the polls (No. 5 BCS). The Hawkeyes’ only defeat, if you recall, came at the hands of in-state rival Iowa State. Curse those Clones!

Quarterback Brad Banks had come in second in the Heisman balloting, losing out to Carson Palmer, quarterback for USC who, ironically enough, would be leading his Trojans against Iowa—no, not in the Rose Bowl, but in the Orange Bowl.

Read the rest of this entry →

Mark Ingram is the first player in the storied history of Alabama football to win the Heisman Trophy.

In their storied football history, the University of Alabama could boast of 12 National Champions and 92 first team All-Americans, but until Saturday night held the dubious distinction of having the most football wins of any school without a Heisman Trophy winner.

That finally changed with the announcement that sophomore running back Mark Ingram had edged out Stanford running back Toby Gerhart to win the 2009 award.

Ingram is actually the first Crimson Tide player to ever finish better than third in the Heisman voting. The previous best finish for an Alabama player was a third place showing by David Palmer in 1993.

After going 72 years without ever having a sophomore claim the award, Ingram’s selection marked the third straight year that a sophomore has claimed college football’s most prestigious award.

Read the rest of this entry →

After winning the Heisman Trophy in 1966, Steve Spurrier spent a decade in the NFL primarily as a backup quarterback.

There are five talented college players being considered for the prestigious Heisman Trophy this week. However, if any of them truly want to have a long and successful NFL career they might want to hope that someone else’s name gets called on Saturday night.

Since the Heisman Trophy was first awarded in 1935, it has gained a somewhat notorious reputation for being a harbinger of NFL futility, rather than NFL success.

Of the 73 men who have won the award, only eight have gone on to earn induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In fact, the number of Heisman winners who could be branded as NFL “busts” is significantly greater than the number who went on to be immortalized with a “bust” in Canton.

There are many reasons for this intriguing circumstance.

In the early years of the award, the NFL was still growing and salaries were sometimes less than players could earn in other careers.

The first Heisman winner, Jay Berwanger from the University of Chicago, was the first pick in the first-ever NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles. However, Berwanger chose not to pursue an NFL career and never suited up as a professional. Read the rest of this entry →

Yes, he is back all bright-eyed and bushy tailed!

Zultan, the all-seeing seer, has listened to your pleas to return and has decided to accede to your wishes to predict winners of the upcoming bowl games played by the Big Ten and other less illustrious conferences. (That had to be said in deference to my insistent, strapping Big Ten in-laws.)

There are, as you well know, 34 bowl games including seven Big Ten matchups—but Zultan only has time and space to consider the top 20. It is the holiday season and Zultan is in heavy demand helping the Big Guy in the Red Suit calculate his future after being evicted from Notre Dame land.

As usual you are free to challenge Zultan to see if you can outguess the mighty prognosticator—but the road ahead is filled with pitfalls and disappointment. They don’t call me a seer for nothing!

Click here to enter your own picks to see if you can best the mighty Zultan—and win a prize for your efforts—a $100 gift card at Best Buy, WalMart, or Target—you choose.

All who enter regardless of results will also be eligible to win a CD titled “The Best College Football Fight Songs”—a significant find because Zultan actually performs on one track of this rare CD! Two lucky winners will be awarded a CD at the conclusion of the contest. Read the rest of this entry →