WSU bowl rewind: 1916 Rose Bowl
Video courtesy of Tom Benjey on YouTube.
As part of the build up to Washington State's showdown with Colorado State in the New Mexico Bowl, we're going to take a brief look every day at one of the Cougars' previous bowl appearances. Today we kickoff the segment with the 1916 Rose Bowl, WSU's first-ever bowl game.
Back in 1916, the Rose Bowl was known as the Tournament East-West Football Game, and didn't officially become known as the "Rose Bow" until 1922. It was played as part of the Tournament of Roses starting in 1916. However, the 1916 game was actually the second ever East-West Football Game. The the first was played in 1902, but was so uncompetitive -- Michigan beat Stanford, 49-0 -- that it was dropped from the festivities. Football returned to the Tournament of Roses after the organizers decided that the chariot races that had taken its place were too dangerous.
Washington State, coached by William Henry "Lone Star" Dietz entered the game undefeated with a 6-0 record on the season. The Brown Bruins, coached by Eddie N. Robinson, entered the game 5-3 with one tie. Brown also had a running back by the name of Fritz Pollard, who was the first African-American to ever play in the Rose Bowl.
Find out what happened, after the jump.
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It rained for a solid week leading up to the New Year's Day game, and by kickoff the field was in a state of mush. With 8,000 fans in attendance, neither team was able to get anything going due to the inclement conditions, and the first half ended in a 0-0 tie. But in the third quarter Ralph Boone put the Cougars on the board with a 3-yard touchdown run. Arthur Durham hit the extra point, and WSU had a 7-0 lead.
Carl Dietz, the game's MVP, added a 4-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter to seal WSU's 14-0 victory.
The Cougars had 19 first downs to Brown's six, and gained 313 rushing yards to the Bruins' 74. However, Brown boasted a much more sophisticated aerial attack, passing for 12 yards to WSU's 0. The Bruins fumbled 6 times to WSU's 2, and averaged just 29.3 yards per punt compared to the Cougars' 37.0.
Dietz led the Cougars with 33 rushes for 105 yards.
