January 1, 1954: Too Full of Alabama

January 1, 1954, 70 years ago: The Cotton Bowl Classic is played in the Cotton Bowl stadium in Dallas. And it includes a bizarre play.

From its founding in the 1936 season until the dissolution of the Southwest Conference in 1996, the Classic featured, with a few exceptions, the Champions of the SWC against another team that had a really good season.

In 1953, the SWC Champion was Rice University of Houston. At the time, this was not unusual: They had previously won in 1934, 1937, 1946 and 1949. They won again in 1957. After that, the program went downhill, and they have only won their league twice since: The SWC in 1994, and Conference USA in 2013.

In 1953, Rice went 8-2. They lost by 5 points to Southern Methodist (SMU) and 6 points to Kentucky, then coached by former University of Alabama end Paul "Bear" Bryant. But they beat 2 ranked teams, Florida and Baylor, and also beat Texas. They did not play the University of Houston, which would become their arch-rival. But on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, they beat Number 17 Baylor, 41-19, to rise to Number 6 in the rankings.

Alabama had a weird season. They were ranked Number 5 in the preseason, but in their 1st 6 games, the lost to Mississippi Southern in Montgomery, tied Louisiana State (LSU) in Mobile, beat Vanderbilt in Nashville (big deal), beat the University of Tulsa at home in Tuscaloosa (big deal), tied Tennessee in Birmingham, and died Mississippi State in Tuscaloosa. 2-1-3.

But they beat Georgia away, Chattanooga at home, and Georgia Tech in Birmingham. They lost to Maryland away, before winning the Iron Bowl against Auburn in Birmingham, finishing 6-2-3 and winning the Southeastern Conference Championship. So they were invited to face Rice in the 1954 Cotton Bowl Classic.

Bart Starr, later to lead the Green Bay Packers to 5 NFL Championships including the 1st 2 Super Bowls, played both ways in this game, and intercepted a pass. He then quarterbacked Alabama to an early drive, and a 2-yard run by Tommy Lewis gave the Crimson Tide a 6-0 lead.

But in the 2nd quarter, the Owls equalized on a 79-yard touchdown run by Dicky Moegle. (Later in life, he would change the spelling of his name to match its pronunciation: "Maegle.") LeRoy Fenstemaker, Rice's quarterback and kicker, made the extra point, to take a 7-6 lead.

With 8:34 left in the 2nd quarter, and Rice having the ball on their own 5-yard line, Fenstemaker handed off to Moegle, and he broke free, and ran down the sideline occupied by the Alabama team. No Tide player on the field was going to catch him.

But Lewis, Alabama's co-captain, jumped off the sideline, and tackled Moegle at the Alabama 42. He figured he would get penalized for illegal participation, being a 12th man on the field, and that the referee would put the ball at the spot of the foul, and then mark off 5 yards, giving Rice the ball at the Alabama 37.

Tommy Lewis

Referee Cliff Shaw thought otherwise. There is a rule known as the "Palpably Unfair Act": A referee may award a touchdown when he believes that there has been a flagrant rule violation, and said violation is the only thing that would have prevented a touchdown.

Certainly, Lewis' violation was flagrant. It is possible that Moegle could have tripped and fallen, or suffered a sudden attack of illness that caused him to fall short of the end zone. But no 'Bama player was going to legally tackle him. So Shaw awarded the touchdown. Rice led 14-6, following the only application of this rule ever made in a major college football game. It has never happened in an NFL game, either.

Moegle scored a 3rd touchdown in the 3rd quarter, and a run by Buddy Grantham in the 4th quarter capped the day for Rice, as they won 28-6.

Two days later, both Moegle and Lewis were guests on The Ed Sullivan Show, broadcast live from New York on CBS. Moegle couldn't figure out why Lewis was invited. Why was he being rewarded for breaking the rules? Sullivan, a big sports fan, asked Lewis why he did it. He said, "I guess I was just too full of Alabama."

Surely, Moegle must have been thinking that Lewis was too full of something.

Lewis played for the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League in 1956 and 1957, went into coaching, and died in 2014. Moegle was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers, made the Pro Bowl as a rookie safety in 1955, and ended up playing 7 seasons in the NFL. He later broadcast for the Houston Oilers and managed hotels in Texas, and was elected to the College Football and Texas Sports Halls of Fame. He died in July 4, 2021.

Alabama did not win another SEC Championship until 1961, and it turned out to be the 1st National Championship they won with Bear Bryant as head coach. He restored them to a position of glory, and they remain one of college football's elite programs.

Rice haven't been so lucky. They didn't win another bowl game until December 30, 2008, winning the Texas Bowl against Mid-American Conference team Western Michigan.

In the other New Year's Day bowl games:

* Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California: Number 3 Michigan State beat Number 5 UCLA, 28-20.

* Orange Bowl, Miami: Number 4 Oklahoma upsets Number 1 Maryland, 7-0. This was the season in which Bud Wilkinson's Sooners began a 47-game winning streak, a record that still stands.

* Sugar Bowl, Tulane Stadium, New Orleans: Number 8 Georgia Tech beat Number 10 West Virginia, 42-19.

* Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Florida: Number 12 Texas Tech beat Number 17 Auburn, 35-13.

* Sun Bowl, Kidd Field, El Paso, Texas: Texas Western beat Mississippi Southern, 37-14. Neither of those teams was ranked in the national Top 20. Both have since changed their names: Mississippi Southern College became the University of Southern Mississippi in 1962; and Texas Western, the home team, became the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 1967, a year after winning the NCAA basketball title.

* Tangerine Bowl, from the stadium of the same name, Orlando, Florida: East Texas State and Arkansas State played to a 7-7 tie. Despite both being undefeated, neither team was nationally ranked: The Tangerine Bowl usually played 2 of the stronger "small college" teams in the South against each other.  The game was renamed the Florida Citrus Bowl for the 1982 season. The stadium still stands, now named Camping World Stadium.

In 1996, East Texas State, located in Commerce, Texas, became part of the Texas A&M system, and is now named Texas A&M University-Commerce. Since the reorganization of the NCAA in 1973, they have played in Division II. Arkansas State, located in Jonesboro, remain at the top level, the Football Bowl Subdivision, what used to be known as Division I-A. However, they have changed the name not of the school, but of the team: In 2008, they switched from Indians to Red Wolves.