Freedom Bowl Hits X Despite Long Odds

The Freedom Bowl at age X--what have we learned about it?

I. USC hates it.

II. Fresno State loves it.

III. Utah can’t wait to try it.

IV. The Rams scout it, since it’s one commute they can afford. This explains the Rams’ drafting of Jerry Gray (Freedom I), Gaston Green (III), Flipper Anderson (III), Darryl Henley (III), Aaron Cox (IV), Jeff Pahukoa (VI) and T.J. Rubley (VIII) in recent years, with Trent Dilfer (IX) very possibly on deck.

V. It’s not the Liberty Bowl. Same idea, only in Memphis.

VI. It’s not the Independence Bowl. Same idea, only in Shreveport.

VII. The Rams and the Ducks once played each other here. You could look it up--Freedom Bowl VII, Colorado State Rams 32, Oregon Ducks 31.

VIII. Corporate sponsors still won’t touch it, not necessarily a bad thing, I say, unless the “Builder’s Square Poulan Weedeater Outback Steak House Domino’s Pizza Thrifty Car Rental Car Quest Jeep Eagle Mobil USF&G; John Hancock Freedom Bowl” strikes you as a thing of beauty.

IX. Orange Countians have come to appreciate it, if not fully embrace it, because the caliber of football is higher than what’s usually seen inside Anaheim Stadium.

X. At age X, the game has lasted about V or VI years longer than anyone honestly expected.

Some highlights and lowlights from the college football game that annually brings us . . . well, Roman numerals:

Best game--On the night of Dec. 29, 1990, Anaheim Stadium actually moved. In the press box, out-of-town writers wondered aloud, “Are we having an earthquake?” On the field, players stared up into the stands and watched the terrace level do the Wave. Not the fans in the terrace level--the terrace level itself. A huge mass of concrete and structural steel bobbed up and down as Colorado State fanatics stomped their feet in approval of their team’s 32-31 upset of Oregon in Freedom Bowl VII.

It was frightening, it was exhilarating, it was unlike any other Rams game played there since.

Worst game--Florida guaranteed itself a once-in-a-lifetime experience at Freedom Bowl VI, because the Gators are never going to be invited back.

Florida set a Freedom Bowl record for apathy in 1989, with the Gators having to be virtually dragged to Anaheim after losing their last two games and missing a chance at the Sugar Bowl. Besides that, Florida’s coach had just been fired, its quarterback had been suspended for gambling and its star player, Emmitt Smith, announced he was only going to play “a little” because he was saving his legs for a jump to the pros.

So the Gators arrived without their athletic director, their marching band and any real desire to block or tackle--and lost to Washington, 34-7.

Longest game--That would be Freedom Bowl I, 1984, which was Long, Long, Long, Long, Long, Long. Six touchdown passes by Iowa quarterback Chuck Long, in a driving rainstorm, still stand as an all-time bowl record. Long burned Texas’ secondary, which was anchored by All-American Jerry Gray, for 461 passing yards and 55 points in a 55-17 rout.

(Footnote: Once the scorch marks healed, Gray became the the Rams’ No. 1 selection in the 1985 NFL draft. There would be better days ahead for him in Anaheim Stadium.)

Biggest tease--UCLA tailback Gaston Green ran for 266 yards, the third-highest total in any bowl game, and three touchdowns in the Bruins’ 31-10 romp of BYU in Freedom Bowl III.

Duly impressed, the Rams selected Green in the first round of the 1988 draft. Green spent three seasons with the Rams, failed to rush for 266 yards in any one of them.

Biggest controversy--Gene Murphy still wonders what might have happened to Cal State Fullerton’s football program if his 11-1 Titans had been selected to play in Freedom Bowl I instead of Texas.

Probably, Murphy suspects, Cal State Fullerton would still have a football program.

“A terrible tactical error,” says Freedom Bowl executive director Don Andersen, who wasn’t there in 1984, but says today, “Why not let the little guys go up against the big-conference guys?”

Andersen’s predecessor, Tom Starr, had his reasons: Iowa wanted no part of Fullerton; television wanted no part of Fullerton; Starr felt he couldn’t risk his opening-night marquee on a national no-name like Fullerton.

Starr and his staff received death threats from irate Titan fans--funny, they were never that devoted during the regular season--and the game proceeded with a bad taste in mouth of everyone involved.

Freedom Bowl I drew just 24,000 fans, the game barely surviving its opener. You know what happened to the Titans.

Only man to be named MVP while playing only on fourth downs--Things didn’t improve much the next year, either, when Colorado and Washington played a Freedom Bowl so boring that a punter, Barry Helton, was voted co-MVP of the game.

Helton averaged 39 yards a punt, including one for 54 yards, and threw a 31-yard touchdown pass to Jon Embree on a fake field goal. His Buffaloes still lost, 20-17, probably because that was the only pass Helton was permitted to throw.

Freedom Bowl as career enhancement--Shortly after his Arizona State team defeated Air Force, 33-28, in Freedom Bowl IV, John Cooper was hired as head coach at Ohio State.

Freedom Bowl as leisure-time enhancement--Shortly after his team was defeated by Fresno State, 24-7, in Freedom Bowl IX, Larry Smith was fired as head coach at USC.

Freedom Bowl as benefit to mankind in general--Not only was USC arrogance served a heaping piece of humble pie in 1992 but it was contractually obligated to a second helping in 1993. USC alums, of course, can’t stand it, which is why the school’s athletic director, Mike Garrett, was moved to decry the Freedom Bowl as a “no-win proposition,” wishing that the vaunted Trojans (7-5) could play an opponent from a “more prestigious” conference than the WAC.

Which is also why the Utah booster club has grown by legions in the last month.

The word on the street as Freedom X approaches?

“Go Utes!”