SMQ: The FBS postseason and the history of bowl games
By Zach Bigalke
1935 and the impact of solidifying an early calendar of bowl games
In 1935, the Rose Bowl’s status as the only consistent postseason contest in college football finally came to an end. That year, during the slow march out of the Depression, a slate of four new bowl games arrived on the calendar. Two would eventually join the Rose Bowl on the top shelf of bowl games, while another still remains in existence to this day.
The Sugar Bowl was inaugurated in New Orleans that season. So too was the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Sun Bowl in El Paso, and the Poi Bowl in Honolulu. These days, the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl are in the regular rotation as College Football Playoff semifinal sites. The Sun Bowl continues to host annual contests in west Texas. And while the Poi Bowl has since been renamed, postseason football continues to be played in Hawaii.
The rise and lasting success of these introductions to the college calendar opened the door for a broader geographic coverage of bowl contests. By 1937, the Cotton Bowl also came into existence along with other short-lived contests. Florida gained two more bowl games in the 1940s as the Gator Bowl (now TaxSlayer Bowl) and Citrus Bowl were both founded during World War II.
In the process, the bowl game concept was cemented as standard operating procedure for rewarding seasons in college football. At this point, polls and rankings were still in their infancy. Even when they came online, they did not begin awarding postseason national championships until decades down the line. Bowls were ways to draw tourist dollars to sunnier climates for a spectacle that portends the later significance of population shifts toward the Sun Belt states.