Coca-Cola Classic (college football)

The Coca-Cola Classic was a regular season National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college football game played in Tokyo, Japan from 1977 to 1993. It was originally sponsored by Mitsubishi and known as the Mirage Bowl and later The Coca-Cola Company when it was renamed for the soft drink Coca-Cola Classic. Because the game was merely a re-location of a regular season game, it was not considered a traditional, postseason bowl game.

Corporate sponsorship

Mitsubishi

The Mirage Bowl was hosted by Mitsubishi Motors in Japan from its inception through 1985. The name refers to Mitsubishi's Mirage line of subcompact cars. Chrysler imported the Mirage and sold it in the US as the Dodge Colt and the Plymouth Champ.

Coca-Cola Company

The Coca-Cola Company took over corporate sponsorship from Mitsubishi in 1986, renaming it the "Coca-Cola Classic". Other sports contests sponsored by Coca-Cola have also been called "Coca-Cola Classic", for example, in college basketball^[1] and volleyball.^[2] The company's flagship beverage, itself, was rebranded "Coca-Cola Classic" in the wake of the "New Coke" fiasco.

Game results

Italics denote a tie game.

Notable games

1977

The first Mirage Bowl was played in Korakuen Stadium on December 11, 1977, between Grambling State and Temple. Grambling won the game, 35–32, and quarterback Doug Williams was named MVP.

1984

The game between Army and Montana marked the introduction of "The Wave" to Japan.

1988

Heisman Trophy winning running back Barry Sanders concluded his NCAA Division I-A (now FBS) record-setting rushing season in this game, since the NCAA did not begin counting bowl game statistics until 2002 (he would later gain 222 yards in the 1988 Holiday Bowl which are not included in his record-setting total). He watched the Heisman Trophy announcement in a Tokyo television studio at five o'clock in the morning.^[3] Sanders rushed for more than 300 yards in Oklahoma State's 45-42 win against Texas Tech to finish the season with 2,628 yards.

1990

Houston quarterback David Klingler passed for 716 yards against Arizona State, a NCAA Division I-A (now FBS) single game passing yardage record that stood for decades until it was broken by Connor Halliday in 2014.^[4]

1992

Nebraska won the Big Eight conference title, edging out runner up Colorado with the win.

1993

With the win, Wisconsin became co-champions of the Big Ten (with Ohio State, who they had tied earlier in the season) and received the invitation to the 1994 Rose Bowl, the program's first Rose Bowl appearance since the 1963 Rose Bowl.

See also

• List of college bowl games
• List of college football games played outside the United States

References