The 1965 Tangerine Bowl was a postseason

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

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 ...

between the

Maine Black Bears The Maine Black Bears are the athletic teams that represent the University of Maine. A member of the America East Conference, the University of Maine sponsors teams in eight men's and nine women's NCAA sanctioned sports. The men's and women's ice ...

and the

East Carolina Pirates The East Carolina Pirates are the athletic teams that represent East Carolina University (ECU), located in Greenville, North Carolina. All varsity-level sports teams participate at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division ...

Background

The Pirates were champion of 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 ...

in their first year of play after years of independence. The Black Bears were the champion of the

Yankee Conference The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the an ...

since 1961. The game was one of four regional finals in the College Division, the predecessor of Division II; the other three postseason games were the

Pecan The pecan (''Carya illinoinensis'') is a species of hickory native to the southern United States and northern Mexico in the region of the Mississippi River. The tree is cultivated for its seed in the southern United States, primarily in Georgia, ...

Grantland Rice Henry Grantland "Granny" Rice (November 1, 1880July 13, 1954) was an early 20th-century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio. Early years Rice wa ...

, and

Camellia ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are more than 220 described species, with some controversy ...

bowls, also played on December 11.

Game summary

Dick DeVarney went down early in the game with both a leg injury and a separated shoulder, hurting the chances of the Black Bears. Pete Kriz gave the Pirates a lead on a 24-yard field goal in the second quarter. George Richardson threw a 35-yard touchdown pass to Jim Abernathy to increase the lead to 10 before halftime. The Pirates piled on in the third quarter with a touchdown run by

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

Dave Alexander, and a touchdown pass from him to Churchill Grimes (after an interception), which made it 24–0. Finally, Alexander ran for a 55-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter to put an exclamation point on the game and give the Pirates their third consecutive bowl victory. Alexander was named the game's MVP. It was East Carolina's second straight victory in the Tangerine Bowl, the College Division's Eastern regional final, and the Pirates' third straight 9–1 season.

Aftermath

East Carolina moved up to the University Division for the next season but the Pirates did not play in a bowl game until

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...

, in the

Independence Bowl The Independence Bowl is a post-season National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-sanctioned Division I college football bowl game that is played annually each December at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Independence Bowl ...

. The Black Bears did not win another conference title until

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...

, sharing it with

UMass The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

. When the College Division was retired after the 1972 season, Maine went to Division II in

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. ...

and moved up to

Division I FCS The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

when it started in

as Division I-AA.

Statistics

References

{{Maine Black Bears bowl game navbox Tangerine Bowl Citrus Bowl (game) East Carolina Pirates football bowl games Maine Black Bears football Tangerine Bowl Tangerine Bowl