The 1991 Sunkist

Fiesta Bowl The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Phoenix metropolitan area. From its beginning in 1971 until 2006, the game was hosted at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2007, the game has been pla ...

, part of the

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

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 ...

season, took place on January 1, 1991, at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. 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 me ...

, 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 o ...

(SEC), and the

Louisville Cardinals The Louisville Cardinals (also known as the Cards) are the NCAA athletic teams representing the University of Louisville. The Cardinals teams play in the Atlantic Coast Conference, beginning in the 2014 season. While playing in the Big East Co ...

, competing as a football independent. In what was the 20th edition of the Fiesta Bowl, Louisville won the game 34–7.

Teams

Alabama

Under new coach

Gene Stallings Eugene Clifton Stallings Jr. (born March 2, 1935) is a retired American football player and coach. He played college football at Texas A&M University (1954–1956), where he was one of the "Junction Boys", and later served as the head coach at ...

, Alabama's secondary coach under Bear Bryant from 1958–64, the 1990 Alabama squad opened the season ranked No. 13 only to be upset by

Southern Miss The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a public research university with its main campus located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, ma ...

, led by quarterback

Brett Favre Brett Lorenzo Favre ( ; born October 10, 1969) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 20 seasons, primarily with the Green Bay Packers. Favre had 321 consecutive starts from 1992 to 201 ...

, in the opening game en route to an 0–3 start. The Crimson Tide also lost to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

and

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

during the skid. The Tide recovered to win six of their next seven, losing only to Penn State in the final meeting between the schools for 20 years. Following its 24–3 victory over

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

, Alabama accepted a bid to the Fiesta Bowl. Alabama concluded the regular season with a victory 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 Conferen ...

vs. Auburn, giving it a final regular season record of 7–4. The appearance marked the first for Alabama in the Fiesta Bowl. Stallings, who was fired by the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

Phoenix Cardinals The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division, and play t ...

with five games remaining in the 1989 season, coached in college for the first time since leading

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 ...

in 1971.

Louisville

The Cardinals, known mostly for their basketball prowess under

Denny Crum Denzel Edwin "Denny" Crum (born March 2, 1937) is an American former men's college basketball coach at the University of Louisville from 1971 to 2001, compiling a record. He guided the Cardinals to two NCAA championships (1980, 1986) and six Fi ...

, enjoyed their finest football season to date under

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

native

Howard Schnellenberger Howard Leslie Schnellenberger (March 16, 1934 – March 27, 2021) was an American football coach with long service at both the professional and college levels. He held head coaching positions with the National Football League's Baltimore Colts a ...

, who was an assistant under Bryant with Stallings before the latter was named head coach at Texas A&M in 1965.

Game summary

Cardinals quarterback

Browning Nagle Browning Nagle (born April 29, 1968) is a retired American football quarterback for the National Football League's New York Jets, Indianapolis Colts, and Atlanta Falcons. He also played as a quarterback for the Arena Football League's Orlando Pre ...

started the scoring with a 70-yard touchdown pass to Latrell Ware to give Louisville an early 7–0 lead. Running back Ralph Dawkins scored next on a 5-yard touchdown run to increase Louisville's lead to 13–0. Nagle later threw a 37-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Cummings giving the Cards a 19–0 lead after the 2-point conversion attempt failed. Alabama's next possession resulted in a blocked punt, which Louisville recovered in the end zone for a touchdown. Another failed 2-point conversion kept the lead at 25–0, a huge lead Louisville raced to after one quarter. In the second quarter, Louisville had the ball again, before backup quarterback

Jeff Brohm Jeffrey Scott Brohm (born April 24, 1971) is an American football coach and former quarterback, who is the current head football coach of the Louisville Cardinals. Brohm played college football at the University of Louisville for coach Howard Sc ...

threw an interception, that was returned 49 yards for an Alabama touchdown. The interception returned for a touchdown cut the lead to 25–7, but those would be the only points Alabama would score the entire game. Louisville's defense shut down the Alabama offense. In the third quarter, Nagle threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Cummings to give Louisville a 32–7 lead. Louisville's last points came in the fourth quarter on a

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly dif ...

, when Alabama's quarterback was called for

intentional grounding In gridiron football, intentional grounding is a violation of the rules where "a passer...throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion."Official Rules of the NFL, Rule 8-3-1. This typically happens when a quarterback about to be ...

in the end zone.

Controversy

The game was marred by the controversy surrounding Arizona voters' rejection of a state holiday in honor of slain

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

leader

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

, as a number of teams rejected an invitation to play in the game before Alabama agreed. Players on both teams altered their uniforms in King's memory. Louisville players wore a jersey patch reading, "The Dream Lives On" (referencing King's 1963 " I Have a Dream" speech), as well as a helmet decal representing the university's cultural diversity, while Alabama players wore black armbands with "MLK" on them. Additionally, Fiesta Bowl officials staged a halftime tribute to Dr. King.http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-01-02/sports/1991002083_1_fiesta-bowl-alabama-holiday The rejection of Dr. King by the voters of Arizona would later cause the

to withdraw its earlier decision to let Arizona host 1993's Super Bowl XXVII.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiesta Bowl, 1991 1990–91 NCAA football bowl games

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

January 1991 sports events in the United States 1991 in sports in Arizona