Tradition of the Cotton Bowl Classic
While the Cotton Bowl Classic college football bowl game is no longer played in the stadium it is named after, it remains one of the most storied and important of the college bowl games.
Dallas oil man Curtis Sanford created the Cotton Bowl in 1937 as a business promotion. Texas Christian University beat Marquette 16-6 in that first New Year's Day game in front of a crowd of 17,000 at the stadium on the Texas State Fairgrounds.
Each college was guaranteed $10,000 for playing in that game.
Nearly 75 years later, the two teams playing in the Cotton Bowl Classic will split a little more than $7 million. Since its inception, the game bowl game has contributed more than $166 million to higher education.
In the 1940s a group of prominent Dallas citizens formed the Cotton Bowl Athletic Association and took over management of the game. A few months later, a deal was struck with the Southwest Conference enabling that league to send its champion to serve as the home team to the game each year.
Texas A&M was the first SWC team to play in the Cotton Bowl under the agreement, beating Fordham 13-12. The Aggies returned the next year but lost to Alabama 29-21. The deal with the Southwest Conference lasted until 1994. Through the mid-1980s, the Cotton Bowl Classic was considered a major New Year's Day college football bowl game. At that time, however, the Southwest Conference began struggling and lost much of its national prestige in athletics, due in large part to many of teams being punished by the NCAA for rules violations. In fact, the champion of the SWC lost the last seven Cotton Bowl Classics it hosted. In addition, other bowl games, most notably the Fiesta Bowl, were attracting National Championship contenders to its game because it was not hindered by a conference tie-in.
In 1995, the Southwest Conference dissolved and so did its affiliation with the Cotton Bowl Classic. Texas Tech lost 55-14 to USC in the final game to be hosted by a Southwest Conference team.
When the SWC disbanded, many of the teams formed the Big 12 conference, which then became the anchor of the Cotton Bowl Classic. In the first few years, teams from either the Pacific 10 (now the
Pac 12 Conference) or the Western Athletic Conference supplied the opponent.
Since 1999, the Southeastern Conference has been the Big 12's opposition. In 2010, perhaps the biggest change to the game occurred when the location was moved from the Cotton Bowl to the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. This stadium features a retractable roof and a video board cluster of four screens that are suspended 90 feet above the center of the playing field. The video cluster measures 160 feet in length and 72 feet high. The screens allow fans from any part of the stadium to enjoy the game in crisp high definition. The 2011 contest will be played Jan. 7.
Though it is not one of the
Bowl Championship Series games which determines college football's national champion, the Cotton Bowl Classic is still one of the most prestigious and highly-anticipated bowl games of the season.
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college football betting lines will be released at the end of the regular college season as the teams are granted their bowl berths. We'll have all types of sports wagers i the sportsbook ready for you so can bet the coin toss to the last play of the game with out in-game or live wagering in highly televised matchups.
