Are these the 10 BEST college football bowl memories? That will always be completely subjective, so I’m not trying to give you the impression that these are objectively the best bowl moments. The history of college football’s bowl games is a lot more expansive than just 10 moments.

In World War II, the Rose Bowl’s normal site on the California coast was deemed unsafe for play, given the threat to the United States posed by Japan. The Oregon State Beavers and Duke Blue Devils played the 1942 Rose Bowl, weeks after Pearl Harbor, on the East Coast of the United States, in Durham, North Carolina.

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The early years of the Rose Bowl – before other bowl games were created beginning in the 1934 season – were some of the most important years in college football history.

The 1925 Rose Bowl gave momentum to the establishment of Notre Dame as a nationally significant college football program. Knute Rockne’s development of Notre Dame football took off after his Fighting Irish beat Stanford on the first day of 1925.

The very next year, Alabama’s victory over Washington in the 1926 Rose Bowl showed Alabama it could compete with other national programs. If you ask anyone in the Deep South of the United States about the most important game in Southern football history – the game which gave rise to the modern Southeastern Conference we have today – most will cite the 1926 Rose Bowl.

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So, there are so many moments which are supremely important in the annals of CFB bowl history, but these 10 moments are some of the most colourful, original, and captivating you will find. Some GREAT moments were left off this list. Remember: This is a list of 10 events spanning 90 years of bowl history.

90 years? Why 90?

Well, it’s because the first event on the list took place 90 years ago:

1929 ROSE BOWL: “WRONG-WAY RIEGELS”

California’s Roy Riegels recovered a fumble and ran the wrong way, toward his team’s own end zone. He was tackled by a teammate on his own 1-yard line, but California’s possession ended with a blocked punt, which still gave Georgia Tech a two-point safety. That was the difference in an 8-7 win for Georgia Tech.

Postscript: Riegels could have lived his life in shame and humiliation, being haunted by the experience. Instead, he shouldered the event with grace and good humour. He lived a very successful professional life with a very happy family life as well. A great lesson for anyone who endures a difficult moment in one’s early years.

2003 FIESTA BOWL: OVERTIME, CONTROVERSY, AND THRILLS

This game between Ohio State and Miami had everything: 

Miami had a 34-game winning streak and was trying to win back-to-back national titles, stamping itself as one of the greatest college football teams of all time. 

Ohio State was trying to win its first national title since 1968. 

This game was the first Bowl Championship Series national championship game (the BCS started in 1998) to go to overtime. 

It involved a controversial penalty on Miami - in overtime - which kept Ohio State alive and enabled the Buckeyes to later win. 

The game involved an offensive player, Ohio State’s Maurice Clarett, stealing the ball from behind against Miami’s Sean Taylor, an eerie replication of a moment which happened to Miami 10 years earlier in the 1993 Sugar Bowl against Alabama.

When the most memorable games in college football history are recounted, this has to be on the shortlist.

2006 ROSE BOWL: THE GREATEST EVER

If you could get 1,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 people over 30 years old and gather them in a room, and you asked them, “What’s the greatest college football game you ever saw?”, most would say the 2006 Rose Bowl between Texas and USC.

Like Miami three years earlier, USC entered the national championship game with a 34-game winning streak. Like Miami, USC was denied a special place in history. Texas quarterback Vince Young almost single-handedly carried Texas to a fourth-quarter comeback win. USC led 38-26, but Texas scored once. Then the Longhorns stopped USC on 4th-and-2 near midfield, giving Young a chance to win the championship. He did, on a run to the sideline, just inside the pylon of the end zone, in the final 20 seconds.

1954 COTTON BOWL: THE SIDELINE TACKLE

This isn’t a “great” moment so much as an original - and very shocking - one. 

Alabama played Rice in the 1954 Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Rice’s great running back, Dicky Maegle, was sprinting down the right sideline on his way to the end zone. A frustrated Alabama player who was watching on the sidelines, Tommy Lewis, ran off the bench to tackle a completely surprised Maegle, who was incredibly lucky not to be seriously hurt since he never expected a tackle from a player who was not in the game. Maegle was awarded a touchdown, and the moment rates as one of the most bizarre in bowl history.

1979 COTTON BOWL: THE CHICKEN SOUP GAME

25 years after one remarkable Cotton Bowl moment, this game unfolded in Dallas:

The city had been hit by an ice storm before kickoff. The weather was the worst in Cotton Bowl history. It would be hard to imagine conditions more unplayable or less comfortable. 

A Notre Dame quarterback named Joe Montana was ill. He had chicken soup at halftime. Notre Dame trailed Houston, 34-12, but Montana led an epic comeback which was completed by a touchdown with no time left on the clock to stun the Cougars, 35-34. The legend of Joe Montana, which grew in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, was launched on that day in Dallas.

The moral of the story? Eat your chicken soup.

2017 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: DESHAUN’S DRIVE

Alabama was about to win its second consecutive national title over Clemson, after their victory in the 2016 title game. Clemson had one more chance, though, down 31-28. It had the ball with just over two minutes left. Could Deshaun Watson get it done?

Yes, he could. 

He hit his favourite receiver, Hunter Renfrow, with a short touchdown pass with one second left to give Clemson a 35-31 win and the program’s first national championship since 1981. The Dabo Dynasty (belonging to Clemson coach Dabo Swinney) began with 'Deshaun’s Drive.'

2018 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: TUA’S TRIUMPH

Jalen Hurts now plays for Oklahoma. Hurts has played in four straight College Football Playoffs – three with Alabama, one with Oklahoma. 

In the 2018 title game, Hurts was ineffective against Georgia. Alabama coach, Nick Saban, inserted then-freshman Tua Tagovailoa, who rallied Alabama from a fourth-quarter deficit to force the first overtime in a College Football Playoff championship game. Georgia kicked a field goal to take a three-point lead in overtime. 

In college overtime, both teams get one possession no matter what, so Alabama had a chance to win with a touchdown.

Tagovailoa, being inexperienced, took a horrible sack on first down for a 16-yard loss. With Alabama facing 2nd-and-26, Georgia seemed to have a great chance of winning its first national title since 1980. Tua, however, responded by throwing a 41-yard touchdown to Devonta Smith to give Alabama its second national championship in three seasons, its fourth of the decade, and the sixth for Saban in his career.

1973 SUGAR BOWL: THE THROW

It was a classic battle in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve of 1973. Notre Dame and Alabama, two storied programs under iconic coaches – Ara Parseghian for Notre Dame, Paul “Bear” Bryant for Bama – were locked in a tight battle for the national championship.

Notre Dame led 24-23 but faced 3rd-and-8 from its own 3-yard line with roughly two minutes left in the game. A failure to get a first down would have given Alabama great field position on its next possession, certainly close enough to kick a field goal and win. Notre Dame had to get a first down, Bama had to stop the Irish.

What would happen?

Notre Dame quarterback Tom Clements dropped back to pass. Alabama got pressure, but Clements saw Robin Weber break free near the left sideline. The 30-yard pass thrown deep from his own end zone was true. Clements hit Weber for a big gain, and Notre Dame had made a defining play which added to the Fighting Irish’s long and treasured history as college football’s most famous program. Oh, and also won a national title.

1984 ORANGE BOWL: MIAMI MAGIC

If you study NFL history, you know that one of the greatest NFL games of all time was played in January of 1982. The San Diego Chargers beat the Miami Dolphins, 41-38, in overtime. Two years later, the same city and the same stadium hosted what is still one of the great college football games ever played.

Many will insist that the 2006 Rose Bowl and 2007 Fiesta Bowl are the best games ever, and those are good arguments, but the 1984 Orange Bowl still has a strong case. Miami won the national title because Nebraska coach Tom Osborne – who could have played for a 31-31 tie by kicking an extra point, securing its No. 1 ranking in the process – instead chose to go for a game-deciding 2-point conversion. Miami stopped the 2-point try and won, 31-30.

Ties occurred in those days; college football did not use an overtime period until the 1990s. Osborne won a lot of respect throughout college football for going for the win. He did, however, lose the national title.

This game was so much bigger than the very dramatic ending. One highlight among many: Nebraska pulled off a trick play called the “fumble-rooskie.” Miami was the place to be for epic games in the early 1980s. (New Orleans’ Sugar Bowl was, too, but that’s a separate conversation.)

2007 FIESTA BOWL: NOISY IN BOISE

This was not a national title game, but it might be the most fun college football bowl game ever. It also carried huge importance for a basic reason: Boise State was not part of any of the “power” conferences in college football. The Broncos were upstarts, given a chance to play in this game because college football expanded the Bowl Championship Series from a four-game set to a five-game collection, in order to accommodate more teams.

If Boise State had lost badly to Oklahoma – one of the bluebloods in the sport – future small-conference teams probably wouldn’t be represented as well in big games as they are today.

Boise State not only won; it won in the most entertaining way possible.

Trick plays called a “hook and lateral” and a 'Statue of Liberty' (the play which won the game in overtime) were just small parts of a much larger aggressive game plan from Boise State head coach, Chris Petersen, who recently stepped away from coaching following the 2019 season with the Washington Huskies.

Boise State-Oklahoma was supremely fun and supremely important. That combination makes the 2007 Fiesta Bowl very special.

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