I remember when..

Many years ago when I was young, I remember looking forward to New Years Day with great anticipation. I would go to bed right after midnight to be ready. Why you ask? It would the best football day of the year. There would be games from mid-morning til almost midnight. I would even take a half day of vacation the next day so I could stay up late and watch the games

All the big games were that day. The big ones then were the Cotton Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl. You had direct tie-ins with conferences. The Rose Bowl had the Big 10 and Pac-10 champs. The Cotton Bowl had the old SWC champ, the Sugar Bowl the SEC and, and the Orange Bowl had the Big 8 champ. There were other games duing the day too. So, if one game got boring, you could flip to another one. And this was before the ESPN/Sport Channel hey-dey, so it was all on national TV channels.

I saw some great battles between Notre Dame and Alabama. I remember Pitt having this running back named Tony Dorsett who you could tell was going to be really good. I remember a Georgia QB with the great name of "Buck Belue" who led Georgia to a win over Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. I remember going to bed early when I lived in Louisville (and didn't have vacation so I had to get up early and go to work) and missing the end of the Miami Nebraska game that ended up 31-30 Miami. I remember Miami's QB was a freshman named Bernie Kosar. I read the next day how Tom Osborne went for 2 to try and win the game at the end (there was no OT then) and missed. I would always dream of the day UK might be in one of these games

The National Champ was chosen the next day based on the outcomes of these games. You had two polls, the AP and the UPI. There were multiple years that you had co-champions when one poll picked one team and one poll picked another. So, the Fiesta bowl came along to bust all the fun up.

The Fiesta Bowl was created (if I remember right) for teams not from one of the power conferences to be able to play in a bowl game (this was before the days of 30-something bowl games). In 1987 though, they pulled out what everybody thought was a great event. The two top ranked teams were independents (Miami and Penn State). They were both invited to the game. They moved the game to January the 2nd. I remember the game was dull. Penn State won 14-10 I think and Vinny Testaverde threw a whole bunch of interceptions. But, this set the wheels in motion for this whole BCS Championship game thing we have today. Now, all the big bowl games are played out for a week with the championship game being a week into the new year).

I hardly watch any of these games now. I might watch some of the Championship game to see if the SEC can keep their stranglehold on the National Championship. I'll still dream of UK being in one of those big games though. I know some people say the BCS ruined things, but I think that happened a long time before that.