1979 Orange Bowl

The 1979 Orange Bowl was the 45th edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, on Monday, January 1. Part of the 1978–79 bowl game season, it matched the fourth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners and #6 Nebraska Cornhuskers, both of the Big Eight Conference.^[2][3][4]

This matchup was an anomaly: It featured a rare rematch of conference rivals that played every regular season. Nebraska had upset #1 Oklahoma 17–14 on November 11 in Lincoln,^[5] their first win in the rivalry since the Game of the Century in 1971,^[6] and appeared headed toward a national championship showdown with Penn State. But unranked Missouri (6–4) stunned the #2 Huskers 35–31 in Lincoln the following week,^[7] dropping Nebraska into a tie with Oklahoma for the Big Eight championship and knocking them out of the national championship picture.^[8][9]

Penn State instead faced Alabama for the national title in the Sugar Bowl, and the Orange Bowl found itself with a selection dilemma. Nebraska earned the Big Eight's automatic Orange Bowl berth by virtue of its victory over the Sooners, but, with Penn State and Notre Dame (which accepted an invitation to the Cotton Bowl) off the board, the Orange Bowl committee decided to set up a bowl rematch with Oklahoma to create the best possible matchup.^[8][9] This was the last time a non-championship postseason bowl featured two teams from the same conference until the 2015 season at the Arizona Bowl,^[10] and remains (as of 2019) the last non-championship bowl to be a rematch of a regular-season conference game.^{[citation needed]}

Despite the road loss to the Huskers in the regular season, Oklahoma was a double-digit favorite.^[1]