Found my copy of the sports page from January 2, 1991

I use to keep newspapers following big events when I was a kid. I have the newspaper the day after the failed rescue attempt of the US hostages in Iran, the day after Reagan won in a landslide over Carter, the day after the hostages were released, and so on. I had already graduated from college when I decided to keep the sports page from the Houston Chronicle the day after the New Year's bowl games. Here is a summary of the headlines that day.

The big headline that you aggies will enjoy -

"Burnt orange gets crushed"

That of course was the year that Miami slaughtered Texas' dream of winning the national championship by beating them 46-3 in the Cotton Bowl. Another headline on the page was "Miami's thugs win at all costs" which discussed 202 yards in penalties. As a result of that game, the next season the NCAA created the taunting penalty.

A smaller article on the page, which is why I have it, was "Georgia Tech stakes claim to title 45-21". That became a reality for us for being the only undefeated team that season. Yeah, I know about Colorado. They were 11-1-1 and used the 5th down.

Speaking of Colorado, their game with Notre Dame was late and didn't make the paper the next day. It is interesting that there was a quote from commentator Lee Corso about rumors of Lou Holtz jumping to the NFL. Yep, the same Lee Corso.

Related to the Colorado - Notre Dame game was a headline about Alabama's bowl game that year, "Viewers angry over NBC's Fiesta switch". Apparently a lot of viewers became angry when NBC cut away from the game with five minutes left to cover the Orange Bowl pregame show. I don't think those were Alabama fans that were upset because another headline was "Louisville routs Alabama in Fiesta". It was a disappointing first bowl game for Gene Stallings at Alabama with the team getting beaten pretty bad by a Louisville team that hadn't been to a bowl game in 13 years. Gene Stallings went 7-5 that year, 11-1 the next and then 13-0 to win the national championship during his third season at Alabama. Another interesting note about that Fiesta Bowl, the committee had a hard time finding teams to play that year because of the boycott against the state of Arizona for not celebrating MLK day. Yes, the cancel culture was alive in 1990 also.

Florida had the best record in the SEC in 1990, but was on probation and had to sit home. In their place, Tennessee went to the Sugar Bowl and scored 20 points in the fourth quarter to defeat Virginia 23-22. The bowl games were pretty messed up before the playoffs and the SEC champ had to play the third place ACC team that year.

There were only 18 bowl games played after the 1990 season and the only other SEC victory was Auburn over Indiana in the Peach Bowl. Ole Miss lost to Michigan in the Gator Bowl. Just to throw in one more for a future SEC team, Texas A&M beat BYU in the Holiday Bowl quite easily.

Here is the full list of bowl scores after that season -

Independence - Maryland 34 / Louisiana Tech 34
Aloha - Syracuse 28 / Arizona 0
Liberty - Air Force 23 / Ohio St 11
Blockbuster - Florida St 24 / Penn St 17
All American - North Carolina St 31 / Southern Miss 27
Peach - Auburn 27 / Indiana 23
Holiday - Texas A&M 65 / BYU 14
Freedom - Colorado St 32 / Oregon 31
John Hancock - Michigan St 17 / Southern Cal 16
Copper - California 17 / Wyoming 15
Gator - Michigan 35 / Ole Miss 3
Hall of Fame - Clemson 30 / Illinois 0
Citrus - Georgia Tech 45 / Nebraska 21
Cotton - Miami 46 / Texas 3
Fiesta - Louisville 33 / Alabama 7
Rose - Washington 46 / Iowa 34
Orange - Colorado 10 / Notre Dame 9
Sugar - Tennessee 23 / Virginia 22

Final SEC standings -

Florida 6-1 / 9-2
Tennessee 5-1-1 / 9-2-2
Ole Miss 5-2 / 9-3
Alabama 5-2 / 7-5
Auburn 4-2-1 / 8-3-1
Kentucky 3-4 / 4-7
LSU 2-5 / 5-6
Georgia 2-5 / 4-7
Mississippi St 1-6 / 5-6
Vandy 1-6 / 1-10

There was a statement about another SEC school in one of the articles. The article jokingly stated that there would be a new bowl game called the Probation Bowl. It explained that it would be for schools with a minimum of two major NCAA violations in the last four years. It added that the rumors that Mississippi State upon announcing the hiring of Jackie Sherrill as football coach was immediately invited to play in the inaugural game could not be confirmed.