From the Bluebonnet Bowl to the BCS National Championship

Jan. 6, 2010 / By Danny Sheridan

Anyone who knows me knows I am very much looking forward to the next few days, with the BCS National Championship game on Thursday and the start of the NFL Playoffs this weekend.

Let's take a look at the College Football title game, which pits the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide against the No. 2 Texas Longhorns (8:10 pm ET, ABC). Alabama is a 4-point favorite at Sportsbook.com.

These are two of the proudest football programs in the nation, and they have an interesting head-to-head history that goes back to 1902, which coincidentally is when the first College Football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, was played in Pasadena.

Texas shut out Alabama 10-0 in that first game on Nov. 11, 1902 at Tuscaloosa. That's 108 years, folks, since the Longhorns first beat the Crimson Tide.

I say "first beat" because Texas has never lost to Alabama, at least on the football field.

The schools have met eight times on the gridiron, and Texas is 7-0-1, including 4-0-1 in five bowl meetings. Their first bowl game was the 1948 Sugar Bowl, a 27-7 Longhorns' victory, and their last was the 1982 Cotton Bowl, won 14-12 by Texas.

And in between those bowls, there was the one tie between the teams, which came in the 1960 Bluebonnet Bowl.

The Bluebonnet Bowl was started at Rice Stadium in Houston in 1959 and the last one was played at the Astrodome in 1987. That 1960 bowl marked the meeting of two coaches that ultimately would become cornerstones of their respective school's football program: Texas' Darrell K Royal and Alabama's Paul W. Bryant.

The 1960 season in Alabama started with a win over the SEC Champion Georgia Bulldogs, followed by a dramatic 16-15 win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. It was during halftime of that game that Coach Bryant delivered his famous "We've got 'em right where we want 'em!" speech.

Alabama closed with an 8-1-1 record and at No. 9 in the rankings. Royal's Longhorns finished with a 7-3 record and were unranked.

There were over 68,000 fans on hand at Rice Stadium on Dec. 17 to see the second annual Bluebonnet Bowl, and the game was scoreless until midway through the third quarter. Alabama's Tommy Booker booted a 30-yard field goal, and Texas finally matched that late in the fourth quarter with a 20-yard field goal.

Texas then got the ball on their own 48-yard-line with just 28 seconds left, and on the second play, Texas quarterback Johnny Genung passed incomplete. Time had expired but an Alabama player was penalized for interference on the play and the Longhorns were awarded one more play.

With the ball on the Alabama 18, Texas tried for a game-winning field goal but it went wide left, and the game ended in a 3-3 tie.

Let's hope for the same kind of drama in the BCS Title game. But let's have more than six points.