The 1965 Sun Bowl was a college football 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 Subdivi ...

between the

TCU Horned Frogs The TCU Horned Frogs are the athletic teams that represent Texas Christian University. The 18 varsity teams participate in NCAA Division I and in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for football, competing mostly in the Big 12 Conference. The sc ...

and the Texas Western Miners.

Background

TCU tied for second in the

Southwestern Conference The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) is a collegiate athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which is made up of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southern United States. It participates in t ...

, in the penultimate season for Coach Abe Martin, and first bowl game since

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

. Dobbs was in his first season with the independent Texas Western team, in their first bowl game since 1957. This was their seventh appearance in the Sun Bowl.

Game summary

TCU dominated the first half with 48 rushing plays to Texas Western’s 20, which led to a 10-0 halftime lead. In the first period, Bruce Alford's field goal attempt from the 28 fell short. However, in the second quarter, Kent Nix threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to David Smith, and added in a field goal by Alford later in the second quarter. In the third quarter, the Miners came to life.

Billy Stevens William Samuel Stevens (born August 27, 1945) is a former quarterback in the National Football League. Stevens was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the third round of the 1968 NFL Draft. He played two seasons with the team. He was later acqui ...

shot a 34-yard touchdown pass to

Chuck Hughes Charles Frederick Hughes (March 2, 1943 – October 24, 1971) was an American football player, a wide receiver in the National Football League from 1967 to 1971. , he is the only NFL player to die on the field during a game. Early years Born ...

, narrowing the lead to three. Later in the period, they drove 70 yards for a 21-yard field goal, tying the game at 10. In the fourth quarter, the Miners scored early on an 18-yard field goal, to take the lead at 13-10 after recovering a fumble at the 29. TCU scored with 43 seconds left after sacking Stevens in the end zone, to make it 13-12. The Frogs were given the ball back after the

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 ...

, but they only managed to advance 8 yards, falling just short.

Aftermath

The Miners would return to the Sun Bowl two years later and win (by then, Texas Western had become UTEP). They have not won a Sun Bowl, or any bowl (as of 2020) since. The Horned Frogs would not return to the Sun Bowl until

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, which they won to break their 37-year drought.

Statistics

References

Sun Bowl Sun Bowl TCU Horned Frogs football bowl games UTEP Miners football bowl games 1965 in sports in Texas December 1965 sports events in the United States {{Collegefootball-bowl-stub