The Fiesta Bowl had been played on New Year's Day since the
1982 game. This was because, despite its relatively new status, it frequently featured matchups between highly-ranked conference runners-up or major independents. Despite its growing prestige, the Fiesta was not considered by many to be a major bowl game. Instead, that distinction was given to four other New Year's bowls— the
Cotton,
Rose,
Sugar, and
Orange were all considered major bowls. Each of these bowls was required to take at least one conference's champion as per their charters regardless of the team's rank; the
Southwest Conference champion hosted the Cotton, the
Big Ten Conference and
Pac-10 Conference matched up in the Rose, the
Big 8 Conference champion hosted the Orange, and the
Southeastern Conference champion hosted the Sugar Bowl. The Fiesta Bowl had a tie in with the
Western Athletic Conference for its first seven years, but the agreement ended after
Arizona State and
Arizona left the WAC to join the
Pac-10. Since its debut in December
1971, one team from the
West was often invited, but the Fiesta Bowl was not bound by geography. The climate of college football was different in
1986, as there were twenty-four
independents, as opposed to four in 2017. Some high-profile programs were among those twenty-four teams, with Penn State and Miami being two of them. Since these teams had no ties to any conference, bowl committees were free to invite them as they saw fit. For instance, Penn State was invited to the previous year's
Orange Bowl, while Miami received an invitation to the
Sugar Bowl. If an independent was either first or second in the rankings, their bowl matchup would be determined by what bowl game the other team in the top two was tied to and that bowl would serve as the national championship game. In fact, both Penn State and Miami's previous national championships were won this way. The
1982 Penn State squad, ranked second, defeated #1
Georgia in the
Sugar Bowl. The next season,
Miami had a chance to win the national title in their home stadium against #1
Nebraska in the
Orange Bowl and did. In
1985, both Penn State and Miami finished the regular season ranked first and second. However, by the time the final polls were released both schools had already made arrangements. As noted above, Penn State went to the Orange Bowl and faced #3 Oklahoma while Miami took on #9 Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl. While the possibility existed for a split national championship, neither team won their bowl game. In 1986, the situation once again arose where both schools finished the regular season atop the polls. This time, there would be a matchup between Miami and Penn State, requiring a different plan as to how to resolve where the game would be taking place. All of the bowl games had been set except for the one that Miami and Penn State would be playing in for the national championship. The Fiesta Bowl selection committee's only opposition came from the organizers of the
Citrus Bowl in Orlando, which like the Fiesta Bowl was not locked in to taking anyone from a conference. The bidding process resulted in the game being awarded to the Fiesta Bowl. As a result, the Fiesta Bowl's growing national prestige increased even further, ultimately propelling it to major-bowl status (and depending on the source, even replacing the Cotton Bowl as the fourth major bowl). The Fiesta Bowl became part of the
Bowl Alliance and
Bowl Championship Series years later, and is today part of the
New Year's Six. As noted above, the Fiesta Bowl had previously kicked off in the late morning (
MST), early afternoon in the East. At the time, the structure of the New Year's Day games saw the Fiesta and Cotton Bowls played first, with the Rose Bowl starting around 4:45 pm
EST and the Orange and Sugar Bowls played at night at the same time. (The Orange moved to night in
1965, the Sugar in
1982). NBC at the time was the television home for three of the aforementioned bowls, and if the national title was to be decided in one of them, airing the Fiesta Bowl early in the day would have been of little benefit. This brought about the shift in dates to January 2, which ensured the game would not face any competition from any other bowl game that might have been played at the time and helped it gain the record-setting audience it pulled in. In November, the potential changing of the date (and time) was not initially welcomed by the NCAA. ==Teams==