With the evolution of the college football playoff system, the holiday bowls are not what they once were, but fortunately, they are present in the new 12-team format.
That is good. College football would be wrong not to find a way to embrace the bowls that have meant so much to the game and to local charities in communities across the country.
Most fans who are getting old will remember the salad days of several bowl games taking place during New Year’s Day, with the Rose Bowl coming in late afternoon and followed by the Orange Bowl at night. Fans would hook up two or more television sets and watch several games simultaneously.
Since 1959, I have seen all Georgia Bowl games except the 1971 Gator Bowl, which was played on Dec. 31. New Year’s Eve was a working day, and I could not make it to Jacksonville for the game.
The game was an emotional downer for fans, with Georgia winning 7-3 over North Carolina. At the time, Vince Dooley’s younger brother, Bill, coached the Tar Heels. There was much pre-game hype about the Dooley brothers' matchup.
After a scoreless first half, Carolina kicked a field goal in the third quarter, but Georgia followed with a touchdown run by Jimmy Poulos, who gained 161 yards rushing and was named most valuable player of the game.
Rex Edmonson, a Georgia graduate and sports columnist for The Jacksonville Journal, had this classic quote on the low-scoring affair. “In the battle of the Dooley brothers, Vince won the toss and ran the clock out.”
The 1960 Orange Bowl, played on New Year’s Day, was a low-scoring encounter. Fran Tarkenton tossed two touchdown passes to Bill McKenny and Aaron Box, defeating Missouri 14-0.
Dan Magill got me a job spotting for the CBS radio network. As I recall, it paid $25. I was paid in cash, which made me feel like a wealthy Dog.
The Sun Bowl in 1964 was unique because nobody on the team had ever been that far West. There was the allure of the Rio Grande River, which you could walk across, and the border town of Juarez, Mexico, the first international experience for most traveling party members.
During the Vince Dooley era, there was usually a yearly bowl game. We did not make it to the Orange Bowl, except to play Miami in the regular season in 1966.
We could have gone to Miami in 1968, but that was the “winking” era when college officials were forbidden to communicate with the bowl representatives.
However, there was an undisclosed semaphore between Dooley and the Sugar Bowl folks in the week leading up to the Auburn game at Auburn, which Georgia won 17-3.
The players wanted to go to Miami, as all players did in that era. Only the Pac-10 and Big 10 teams could be invited to play in the Rose Bowl, making the Orange Bowl the next most popular. Palm trees, beaches, shirt-sleeve weather—what was there not to like about Miami?
Before that year's Auburn game, Dan Magill and I took the Orange Bowl representatives to the best restaurant in Columbus for dinner — “The Black Angus Restaurant.”
Bill Ward was the Orange Bowl spokesman, and I heard him say, “We really want to invite Georgia to play in our game, but my instructions from Miami are that we must have a winner (in tomorrow’s game).”
What had happened was that the Sugar Bowl basically said to Dooley, “We will take you, win or lose.” Vince took the bird in hand, which did not sit well with his team. They played the worst game of the season and lost to Arkansas, 16-2.
The weather was cold, which brought about a quip from Georgia President Fred Davison that deepened the chill for the Georgia delegation.
At a dinner for the officials for both teams at Antoine’s, one of the most famous restaurants in the city, the Georgia president, in an attempt to be funny, said, “With these cold temperatures, tomorrow ought to be a good day for a hog killing.”
Vince Dooley almost suffered apoplexy.