From the Joe Montana chicken soup game to Boise State’s trick-play trinity, these bowls were all-timers.
The first college football bowl game was played on Jan. 1, 1902, and it was decidedly not a classic. Michigan beat Stanford 49–0 in the inaugural Rose Bowl. Among the lowlights: nine Stanford fumbles and its captain saying that his team was quitting with eight minutes remaining.
But in the nearly 121 years since then, football fans have enjoyed a multitude of exciting bowl games. The boss tasked me with picking the best of them, which is like picking the nation’s best pizza.