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Rose/Cotton/Sugar/Orange

Dec 9, 2017
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'Twas a simpler time back then.

Conference foes battled for the ultimate prize of a venture to the big bowl bid of choice.

Rose was the darling of the Pac 10/Big10.
Cotton was the old SWC
Sugar was the SEC champ
Orange was reserved for the B8 champ

Regional wins and superiority were the game, and many games oranges tossed on the field of a Nebraska/Oklahoma game.

Win your conference was the goal every year. Everything else was gravy.

The Big4 bowl games on January 1st every year were all the rage.
 
Jan 1 in those days was football bliss. The Cotton Bowl was early afternoon, Rose late afternoon, and Orange and Sugar in prime time. So by the time the NU or OU were playing in the Orange Bowl in the evening, the national championship equation was largely sorted out. The bliss part was helped that we were often an active participant in the equation.
 
Jan 1 in those days was football bliss. The Cotton Bowl was early afternoon, Rose late afternoon, and Orange and Sugar in prime time. So by the time the NU or OU were playing in the Orange Bowl in the evening, the national championship equation was largely sorted out. The bliss part was helped that we were often an active participant in the equation.
Agreed. I'll go on youtube just to relive some of those and hear the announcers from back in the day.

I get nostalgic in hearing the old NBC announcers from CFB/NFL, like Charlie Jones, Dick Enberg, Don Criqui and others that covered the bowl games.
 
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New Year's Day used to be like a 2nd Christmas. There were a lot of outstanding football games. In addition, back then all the bowls had committees that sent representatives to games throughout the season to evaluate the teams and on a late November Saturday evening at 6 PM the bowl invitation would be made. It was always fun to see what school would be invited to what game. That was always fun.
 
1981 (1/1/82) was pretty special.

Texas beat #3 Bama in the Cotton
Pitt beat #2 Georgia in the Sugar

Stage was set for a 2 loss #4 Nebraska to beat #1 Clemson in the Orange Bowl that night.

Homer Jordan and Perry Tuttle were just too much.
 
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I find it funny how you could change channels faster in 1986 than you can now.
Someone should come up with a service that would aggregate all the streaming services into one interface and then provide a guide that would show what is on the different channels and let you easily switch between all the channels.
 
I never had multiple TV's to watch. I remember switching channels back and forth between games, and that was with a tv without a remote control.
Did you have the channel lock pliers attached to the little post that the dial used to be attached to? I know we did as a kid. Instead of the dial telling you what channel, we learned to determine the channel from the orientation of the old channel lock. Changing the channel was just a quick flip of the wrist - with 3 channels to chose from (4 with PBS), wasn't hard to find the games.
 
F the Gross Bowl -- the grandmother of them all. Often a bad B10 team played a bad P10 team, but they got paid. Or a good B10 or P10 team played a bad opponent. I'm sure hayden fraud and little kirky fail-rentz won a lot of Gross Bowls. oh, wait... stoo-pid hogeyes
 
Did you have the channel lock pliers attached to the little post that the dial used to be attached to? I know we did as a kid. Instead of the dial telling you what channel, we learned to determine the channel from the orientation of the old channel lock. Changing the channel was just a quick flip of the wrist - with 3 channels to chose from (4 with PBS), wasn't hard to find the games.
A walk down memory lane
 
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'Twas a simpler time back then.

Conference foes battled for the ultimate prize of a venture to the big bowl bid of choice.

Rose was the darling of the Pac 10/Big10.
Cotton was the old SWC
Sugar was the SEC champ
Orange was reserved for the B8 champ

Regional wins and superiority were the game, and many games oranges tossed on the field of a Nebraska/Oklahoma game.

Win your conference was the goal every year. Everything else was gravy.

The Big4 bowl games on January 1st every year were all the rage.
Sounds like a history lesson.
 
Did you have the channel lock pliers attached to the little post that the dial used to be attached to? I know we did as a kid. Instead of the dial telling you what channel, we learned to determine the channel from the orientation of the old channel lock. Changing the channel was just a quick flip of the wrist - with 3 channels to chose from (4 with PBS), wasn't hard to find the games.
No pliers need, my tv had a dial. I do distinctly remember the click-click-click the dial made when changing channels.
 
The P12 network is showing the '91 Gross Bowl. The hogeyes were 8-3 and ranked #17 by AP entering the game vs. Washington. They were 8-4 after the Grandmother of them All.
 
The P12 network is showing the '91 Gross Bowl. The hogeyes were 8-3 and ranked #17 by AP entering the game vs. Washington. They were 8-4 after the Grandmother of them All.
I don’t know why you call it the Gross bowl but for what it’s worth Washington beat us at home 36-21 and tied Miami Fl for the national championship after the canes shut out Nebraska 22-0 in the Orange..

Would love nothing better than to watch Nebraska play again in the grand daddy of them all bowl game..
 
I don’t know why you call it the Gross bowl but for what it’s worth Washington beat us at home 36-21 and tied Miami Fl for the national championship after the canes shut out Nebraska 22-0 in the Orange..

Would love nothing better than to watch Nebraska play again in the grand daddy of them all bowl game..

That was the following year. The 91 rose bowl was after the 90 season.
 
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