Oklahoma State quarterback Scott Burk center fights off a Brigham Young tackler in the 1974 Fiesta Bowl Oklahoma State won 16 6 of Arizona in Tucson and Arizona State University ASU in Tempe were members of the Western Athletic Conference WAC Back then even though ASU had a strong team the WAC was viewed as a weak league In 1969 the Sun Devils were not invited to a bowl game despite posting an 8 2 record That upset Arizonans who believed it was time for a postseason college game in the Southwest The local newspaper the Arizona Republic backed the idea So did many Phoenix-area businesses Soon a 6
Penn State coach Joe Paterno left and Arizona State coach Frank Kush pose for pictures before the 1977 Fiesta Bowl plan was presented to the National Collegiate Athletic Association NCAA which is in charge of college sports In 1970 ASU went 10 0 but only was invited to the second-level Peach Bowl And the NCAA shot down the Arizona bowl idea But the boosters in Phoenix did not give up They improved their plan and the next year the NCAA approved the new bowl The next step was to name the annual bowl game A public contest was held and Fiesta which means party or festival in Spanish was the winner 7
Michigan coach Bo Schembechler center is carried off the field by his players after the Wolverines beat Nebraska 27 23 in the Fiesta Bowl on January 1 1986 So Arizona had a new bowl game which would be played at Sun Devil Stadium on the ASU campus And it had a name Next it needed two teams to play in it and not just for the first year but every year as the Fiesta Bowl tried to become better known The organizers wanted their game to be just as big as the Rose Orange Sugar and Cotton Bowls They wanted to have the very best teams in college football Alabama Oklahoma Notre Dame Penn State come to Tempe But first the bowl would have to prove itself worthy The hometown Sun Devils were chosen to play in the 8
first Fiesta Bowl And the host team from the western United States would need to show it could play with and beat top teams from other parts of the country ASU was the home team before 51,000 fans on December 27 1971 for the first Fiesta Bowl That day the Sun Devils beat Florida State 45 38 behind Danny White a future Dallas Cowboys quarterback The game increased in importance throughout the 1970s In 1978 the University of Arizona and ASU joined the Pacific-10 Conference By 1980 football fans considered the Fiesta Bowl a big-time game Penn State beat Ohio State 31 19 that year in the first game that did not feature a team from the WAC or Pacific-10 The following season the Fiesta Bowl moved to New Year’s Day joining the other major bowls That year Penn State beat Southern California and future Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen 26 10 HOMETOWN HEROES The first three Fiesta Bowls were home games for ASU After the Sun Devils beat Florida State in the first one they downed Missouri and Pittsburgh the next two years In fact they won four of the first five Fiesta Bowls also beating Nebraska in 1975 The little bowl game that had begun only a decade earlier now was one of the big boys 9
