The 1976 Independence Bowl was a post-season college football

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 Subdivi ...

between the

Tulsa Golden Hurricane The Golden Hurricane are the athletic teams that represent the University of Tulsa. These teams are referred to as the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (or variously as TU or Tulsa). Before adopting the name Golden Hurricane in 1922, the University of T ...

and the on December 13, 1976, at State Fair Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana. McNeese State upset a heavily favored Tulsa 20–16. This was the first-ever edition of 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 ...

, which drew its name from the ongoing celebrations of the

United States Bicentennial The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to historical events leading up to the creation of the United States of America as an independent republic. It was a central event ...

Background

Between 1976–1980 the Independence Bowl featured the

Southland Conference The Southland Conference, abbreviated as SLC, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States (specifically Texas and Louisiana). It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it ...

champion against an at-large opponent, with the Southland team playing host. McNeese State clinched the championship and spot in the bowl game after defeating 20–19 on November 20. For the at-large opponent the bowl organizers initially pursued

Rutgers Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and w ...

, which was then 10–0 and would finish the season undefeated. Rutgers declined the invitation, feeling snubbed by more prestigious bowls. Rebuffed, the organizers considered Tulsa,

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Memphis State } The University of Memphis (UofM) is a public research university in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. The university maintains the Herff College of Engineering, the Center for Ea ...

, Boston College, and Ball State before selecting Tulsa, co-champion of the

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the third-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the midwest. History The MVC was established ...

. Prior to the game, coverage favored Tulsa over McNeese State due in large part to sixteen of McNeese State's players being unable to play in the bowl. Ten players were declared ineligible because they had

redshirted Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the ...

in their freshman year and were thus fifth-year seniors. At the time,

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

rules prohibited such players from participating in postseason play. Six more players were suspended from the team for violating team and school rules. The players were accused of having a girl in their dormitory room, which McNeese State then prohibited. Some newspaper accounts alleged that "sexual molestation" had occurred. Even before the game was played F. A. Dry, Tulsa's head coach, had accepted the head coaching job at TCU, though he stayed on at Tulsa for the bowl game.

Scoring summary

References

External links

* {{Tulsa Golden Hurricane bowl game navbox Independence Bowl, 1976 Independence Bowl McNeese State Cowboys football bowl games Tulsa Golden Hurricane football bowl games December 1976 sports events in the United States