We all know what happenned.
Penn State and Miami met at Sun Devil Stadium in Arizona on January 2nd, 1987. Both teams had gone through the regular season undefeated and were the consensus #1 and 2 in every poll. Despite being largely unfavored, Penn State beat Miami 14-10, by forcing 7 turnovers, 5 of them Vinny Testaverde interceptions (including a timely goal line pick to seal the game).
How did this happen? Why did this happen? What was the result of this?
In the 1986 College Football season, there were 4 major bowl games -- The Rose Bowl, The Orange Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, and The Cotton Bowl. All 4 of these bowl games had conference tie-ins, and thus had to select the winner(s) of whatever conference(s) they were tied to. The Rose Bowl was tied to the Big Ten (which still had 10 members) and the Pac-10. The Orange Bowl was tied to the Big 8 Conference (now makes up 8 of the Big 12 teams). The Sugar Bowl was tied to the SEC. The Cotton Bowl was tied to the Southwest Conference (busted up in the early 90's, 4 teams went to complete the Big 12).
Penn State and Miami, the two teams who went through the regular season undefeated, were both independent at the time. The match-up would be split up if either of the schools decided to accept a berth to one of the four major bowls.
This left two bowls in a bidding war for the rights to play these two teams -- The Fiesta Bowl in Arizona, and the Citrus Bowl (now capitol one bowl) in Orlando. As the two bowls tried desperately to outbid one another for this game, the Fiesta Bowl came up with a plan that has since infiltrated its way into every other single bowl game. They accepted sponsorship, titular sponsorship at that, from Sunkist, in order to pay the sum to host the two teams.
I don't think there is a bowl game out there now that is not sponsored, not even the blandly titled "bcs championship game" goes without a sponsor (it's FedEx this time around).
This idea of pitting a #1 and #2 against each other every year became a popular idea, namely because college football had no playoff system then, and shows no signs of wanting one now. Co-National Champions after both the 1990 and 1991 seasons even further expressed this need to attempt to pit the two "best" teams against one another. The Bowl Coalition was formed for the 1992 season to try and remedy this situation.
The Bowl coalition consisted of six games with guaranteed representatives coming from six conferences -- the Southwest conference, the Big East, the Big 8, the SEC, the ACC, and Notre Dame (yeah, I went there). The Rose Bowl was not a part of this because it has tie-ins with two conferences, as opposed to the one tie-in most of the other bowls have. The Big East, having formed for the 1991 season, had no direct tie-in to any bowl game, but rather was selected much like an at-large team, a system that continues to this day.
Ironically, the Bowl coalition prevented Penn State from a shot at the 1994 season's National championship. Penn State, having recently joined the Big Ten, went directly to the Rose Bowl, leaving also undefeated Nebraska to play someone else. Both teams won their bowl games and finished the season undefeated.
The Penn State snub along with the guaranteed Notre Dame bid (they went 6-4-1 for the 1994 season, got crushed by Colorado in the 1995 Fiesta Bowl) gave the Bowl coalition a short life. It was supplanted by the Bowl Alliance, but that was basically the same thing (though the Southwest and Big 8 conferences were replaced for the 1996 season by the Big 12), the Rose Bowl was still not involved, which left the Big Ten and Pac-10 out of it. Starting with the 1998 season, they finally joined, creating the "bowl championship series" (I suppose the title does not lie, there is a series of bowls, and there must be champions of each bowl game).
Alas, as I began to ramble about the de-evolution/evolution of the division 1 football title, I forgot to mention an important point. As the title game started to become more directly tied to conferences/notre dame, it became important for the independent football teams to join conferences. The Big East added football (it had already existed, though its schools played football independently). Penn State joined the Big Ten. South Carolina joined the SEC. The only "important" independent to remain so was notre dame, who could do so because of special priveleges it had with the bowl system (after shunning it entirely for 50 years).
The 1987 Fiesta Bowl was the last matchup between an independent number 1 and independent number 2. The 1989 Fiesta Bowl also featured an all-independent matchup, though #1 Notre Dame was pitted against #3 West Virgina. Miami (also still independent) was #2, but several factors kept them from playing in this game -- namely Miami had already lost to Notre Dame that season, and Miami as a team tried to personally kill every member of Notre Dame's roster (something you'd think I'd support, but alas,I'd rather pros do it than thugs).
So yeah, Penn State won the 1987 Fiesta bowl, and with it the national title from the 1986 season, but they ended up taking part in an event which forever changed the sport they played.
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