History
The game was previously known as the Builders Square Alamo Bowl (1993–1998), the Sylvania Alamo Bowl (1999–2001) and the MasterCard Alamo Bowl (2002–2005). The logo of the event has evolved to reflect the changes in sponsorship. On May 24, 2007 the Alamo Bowl announced a partnership with San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corporation, and thus the bowl's full name was changed to the Valero Alamo Bowl.
The game originally gave an automatic invite to a team from the now-defunct Southwest Conference (SWC). However, in 1993, only two of the eight SWC teams finished with the necessary 6 wins against Division 1-A teams to become bowl-eligible (and those two teams were already committed to other bowls). The Alamo Bowl invited the Iowa Hawkeyes instead. The SWC was able to provide participants for the next two seasons (Baylor and Texas A&M) before the conference disbanded.
During the 1996 Alamo Bowl, the Iowa Hawkeyes wore plain black helmets (removing their tigerhawk logo and gold stripe) in honor of linebacker Mark Mitchell's mother, who died in a car accident while traveling to San Antonio for the game.
The 2002 Alamo Bowl played between Colorado and Wisconsin was the first ever Alamo Bowl to go into overtime, with the unranked Badgers defeating the No. 14 ranked Buffaloes after kicking a field goal to win 31–28, completing a perfect non-conference schedule at 6-0 (they went 2-6 in the Big Ten). The 2008 Alamo Bowl between Missouri and Northwestern also went into overtime, with Missouri defeating Northwestern 30–23.
The 2005 Alamo Bowl ended on one of the most controversial plays in bowl game history, a multi-lateral play in which almost the entire Nebraska team and coaching staff entered onto the field, and Nebraska gave their coach the Gatorade Dunk before the play was blown dead, bringing up memories of 1982's "The Play", 2000's "Music City Miracle", and 2002's "Bluegrass Miracle".
The 2007 Alamo Bowl between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Texas A&M Aggies was attended by 66,166, which set an Alamodome facility-record crowd for a sporting event, breaking the previous year's game between Iowa and Texas. Penn State won the game 24–17.
The Alamo Bowl has sold out seven of its sixteen games (1995, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2011).
On August 28, 2009, the Alamo Bowl organizers announced they had reached an agreement with the then-Pac-10 Conference to replace the Big Ten in the Alamo Bowl. Under the terms of the agreement, the now-Pac-12's second-choice team earns a bid to the Alamo Bowl. The agreement takes effect beginning with the 2010 college football season. The now-Pac-12's second-choice team was previously contracted to play in the Holiday Bowl against a Big 12 team; that bowl will instead take the #3 team in the Pac-12 to face a Big 12 opponent.
In the 2011 Alamo Bowl the Baylor Bears and Washington Huskies combined to score 123 points, breaking the record for the most points scored in a bowl game in college football history. Baylor won the game 67-56. The 2011 game was also the first Alamo Bowl to feature the season's Heisman Trophy winner, Baylor's Robert Griffin III.
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—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)