The 1949

Dixie Bowl The Dixie Bowl was a post-season college football bowl game held New Year's Day at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.Foldesy, Jody. "Bowls burgeon as big business", ''The Washington Times''. December 21, 1997. Page A1. The game was only held tw ...

, part of the 1948 bowl game season, took place on January 1, 1949, at

Legion Field Legion Field is an outdoor stadium in the southeastern United States in Birmingham, Alabama, primarily designed to be used as a venue for American football, but occasionally used for other large outdoor events. Opened in 1927, it is named in ho ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

. The competing teams were the

Wake Forest Demon Deacons The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Wake Forest University, located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a mem ...

, representing the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly ...

(SoCon), and the

Baylor Bears The Baylor Bears are the athletic teams that represent Baylor University. The teams participate in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as one of only two private school members of the Big 12 Conference. Prior to j ...

, representing the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma an ...

(SWC). Baylor was victorious in by a final score of 20–7.

Teams

Baylor

The 1948 Baylor squad finished the regular season 5–3–2 with losses against

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

Tulane Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

and SMU and ties against

Mississippi State Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univers ...

and

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

. Following their tie against Rice, Dixie Bowl officials extended the Bears an invitation to play in the 1949 edition of the game, which Baylor accepted. The Dixie Bowl appearance marked the first ever postseason

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

for Baylor.

Wake Forest

The 1948 Wake Forest squad finished the regular season 6–3 with losses against

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

and Clemson. Following their victory over

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

, Dixie Bowl officials extended the Demon Deacons an invitation to play in the 1949 edition of the game, which Wake accepted. The appearance marked the first for Wake in the Dixie Bowl and their second overall bowl appearance.

Game summary

Baylor opened the scoring in the first quarter after George Sims intercepted a Wake pass and returned it 52 yards to the Demon Deacons eight-yard line. Sammie Pierce scored from one yard out a few plays later and after Hank Dickerson missed the

extra point The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...

, the Bears took a 6–0 lead. Baylor extended their lead to 20–0 at halftime after Jerry Mangrum scored from one-yard out and Harold Riley connected with Ray Painter for a 12-yard touchdown reception. Early in the third, Wake scored their only points of the game on a three-yard Mike Sprock run to make the final score 20–7.

References

{{Wake Forest Demon Deacons bowl game navbox

Dixie Bowl Baylor Bears football bowl games Wake Forest Demon Deacons football bowl games January 1949 sports events in the United States