The 1954

Cotton Bowl Classic The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game that has been held annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its namesake stadium i ...

, part of the 1953 bowl game season, took place on January 1, 1954, at the Cotton Bowl in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

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 ...

. The competing teams were the

Alabama Crimson Tide The Alabama Crimson Tide refers to the intercollegiate athletic varsity teams that represent the University of Alabama, located in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide teams compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I as a mem ...

, representing the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

(SEC) as conference champions, and the

Rice Owls Rice University athletic teams are known as the Rice Owls. The name comes from the owls in Rice's crest. Rice participates in NCAA Division I athletics. A member of Conference USA, Rice sponsors teams in seven men's and seven women's NCAA sanctio ...

, 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) as conference co-champions. Rice won the game 28–6, but its victory was overshadowed by Alabama's Tommy Lewis and his "12th man tackle" of Rice running back Dicky Maegle in the second quarter.

Teams

Alabama

The 1953 Alabama squad won only six games all year, and only four of seven conference games. However, the other three conference games were ties, and a 4–0–3 record was good enough to win Alabama the SEC title. It was 'Bama's first conference championship since

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. Januar ...

and last until

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba ( Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 ...

. Following their victory over

Auburn Auburn may refer to: Places Australia * Auburn, New South Wales * City of Auburn, the local government area *Electoral district of Auburn *Auburn, Queensland, a locality in the Western Downs Region *Auburn, South Australia *Auburn, Tasmania *Aub ...

in the

Iron Bowl The Alabama–Auburn football rivalry, better known as the Iron Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between the Auburn University Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide, both charter members of the Southeastern Conferenc ...

to clinch the conference championship, Alabama accepted an invitation to play in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day. The appearance was the second for Alabama in the Cotton Bowl, as they defeated

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

29–21 in the 1942 game.

Rice

Rice accepted a bid for the Cotton Bowl following their 41–19 victory over Baylor to clinch a share of the conference championship with

. The appearance marked the third for Rice in the Cotton Bowl, as they defeated

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

28–14 in the 1938 game and

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 ...

27–13 in the 1950 game.

Game summary

After trading punts on the opening pair of offensive possessions, midway through the first quarter Alabama's

Bart Starr Bryan Bartlett Starr (January 9, 1934 – May 26, 2019) was an American professional football quarterback and head coach for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of Alab ...

intercepted a LeRoy Fenstemaker pass and returned it to the Rice 48-yard line. On the ensuing possession, Alabama scored its only points of the contest after Tommy Lewis capped the drive with a two-yard touchdown run and a 6–0 lead. Rice responded with a trio of long touchdown runs by

Dicky Moegle Richard Lee Maegle (born Moegle; September 14, 1934 – July 4, 2021) was an American professional American football, football player who was a Halfback (American football), halfback in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49 ...

to take a 21–6 lead into the fourth quarter. Moegle's first score came on a 79-yard run on the first play of the second quarter. Midway through the second, Moegle was awarded a touchdown on one of the more infamous plays in college football history. After taking the

handoff In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transfer ...

from quarterback LeRoy Fenstemaker, Moegle broke free for what was to be a deemed 95-yard touchdown run. In what was dubbed the "12th man tackle," Alabama

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...

Tommy Lewis left the Alabama bench, entered the field of play and tackled Moegle at the Alabama 42-yard line, apparently believing that even if the 5-yard penalty for

illegal participation In gridiron football, a penalty is a sanction assessed against a team for a violation of the rules, called a foul. Officials initially signal penalties by tossing a bright yellow colored penalty flag onto the field toward or at the spot of a fou ...

were enforced, his illegal move would have still stopped the score. However,

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

Cliff Shaw instead awarded Moegle a 95-yard touchdown on the play under the palpably unfair act rule, which accounts for situations when a flagrant rule violation prevents a player from scoring by awarding the score anyway. As humorously reported in the ''Reading Eagle,'' "The incident became the first in bowl game history where a man on the bench tackled a runner, and also the first where a runner received credit for a touchdown while flat on his back 38 '' ic' yards from the goal line." Moegle's final touchdown came in the third quarter on a 37-yard run to cap a 67-yard drive for the Owls. For the game, Moegle rushed for 265 yards on 11 carries for an average of 24.1 yards per attempt. Rice scored the final points of the game early in the fourth quarter when Buddy Grantham rushed 7-yards for a touchdown to cap a 75-yard drive and bring the final score to 28–6.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotton Bowl Classic, 1954 1953–54 NCAA football bowl games

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...

1954 in sports in Texas January 1954 sports events in the United States