1972 Cotton Bowl Classic
| 1972 Cotton Bowl Classic | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | January 1, 1972 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 1971 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Cotton Bowl | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Dallas, Texas | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | DE Bruce Bannon (Penn State) RB Lydell Mitchell (Penn State) |
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| Attendance | 70,000 | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | CBS | ||||||||||||||||||
The 1972 Cotton Bowl Classic was a college football bowl game between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Texas Longhorns. The 36th Cotton Bowl Classic, it was played on Saturday, January 1, 1972, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas.
The Texas Longhorns repeated as Southwest Conference champions and were ranked third in the polls in early October, but consecutive losses (to rival Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl and to #15 Arkansas in Little Rock) dropped them to 3–2 and out of national title contention. Texas won its next five games to gain their fourth straight appearance in the Cotton Bowl, all as SWC champion.
The independent Nittany Lions had climbed to 10–0 and fifth in the rankings before the last game of the regular season, a 31–11 upset loss at #12 Tennessee on December 4. (That loss left only Nebraska, Alabama, and Michigan as undefeated, and the first two met for the national title in the Orange Bowl in Miami.) It was Penn State's first Cotton Bowl in 24 years, since 1948.
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