The 2004 Cotton Bowl Classic 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

Oklahoma State Cowboys The Oklahoma State Cowboys and Cowgirls are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Oklahoma State University, located in Stillwater. The program's mascot is a cowboy named Pistol Pete. Oklahoma State participates at the National Col ...

and the

Ole Miss Rebels The Ole Miss Rebels are the 18 men's and women's intercollegiate athletic teams that are funded by and represent the University of Mississippi, located in Oxford. The first was the football team, which began play in 1893. Originally known as th ...

on January 2, 2004, 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: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. It was the final game of the

2003 NCAA Division I-A football season The 2003 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with an abundance of controversy, resulting in the claim of a split national championship. This was the first claimed split title since the inception of the BCS, something the BCS intended to elimi ...

for each team and resulted in a 31–28 Ole Miss victory. Ole Miss represented 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) while Oklahoma State represented the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

. It was Ole Miss's first January bowl victory since the

1970 Sugar Bowl The 1970 Sugar Bowl was the 36th edition of the college football bowl game, played at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Thursday, January 1. It featured the third-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks of the Southwest Conference (SWC) ...

and first Cotton Bowl Classic appearance since

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...

Game summary

Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning completed 21 of 33 pass attempts, threw for two touchdowns, and he ran for one additional touchdown to lead the Rebels to a Cotton Bowl Classic win in a game that was not decided until the final minutes as the Rebels built a 31–14 lead, then held on after the Cowboys made it 31–28 with 4:38 to go. Vernand Morency had two touchdowns for OSU.

References

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 ...

Cotton Bowl Classic Oklahoma State Cowboys football bowl games Ole Miss Rebels football bowl games January 2004 sports events in the United States 2004 in sports in Texas 2000s in Dallas 2004 in Texas {{Collegefootball-bowl-stub