By Nico Van Thyn, Louisiana Tech sports information, student assistant, 1965-69

Louisiana Tech's first football bowl game experience was a cool one -- in every way.

Those in attendance at the Grantland Rice Bowl in Murfreesboro, Tenn., on Saturday, Dec. 14, 1968, will remember that cold day ... if they've thawed out.

"The most miserable day I have ever spent in my life," the Tech backfield coach that day, Mickey Slaughter, remembers. And he played professional football on some cold days in Denver.

It was an NCAA Division II regional bowl game, one of four around the country -- but it was before the NCAA established a playoff system for that division.

As many great teams as Joe Aillet had in his 26 seasons as Tech's coach, none ever played in a postseason game (no opportunities). But Aillet's successor, Maxie Lambright, took his Bulldogs bowling in only his second season.

The opponent was the University of Akron -- also in its first bowl game -- and it was Tech's first appearance, too, on national television (an ABC regional audience). The Zips -- yes, that was the nickname -- brought in a 7-2-1 record.

So it was Tech quarterback Terry Bradshaw's first national TV exposure, and he made it a memorable one.

Near the end of Tech's 33-13 victory, he made a play that longtime Bulldogs fans -- digging into their memory banks -- can't forget: a touchdown pass delivered with three Akron players literally hanging all over him.

No surprise that Bradshaw and Tommy Spinks, the best of friends and a pass/catch combination that helped carry Shreveport Woodlawn High School's 1965 team to the Class AAA state championship game and then starred at Tech, were the stars of this game. They played a lot of great games together for five years, but considering the conditions, none was ever better than that day in Murfreesboro.

In the second half of the 1968 season, Bradshaw consistently showed that he had more than just potential. He had developed into one of the nation's best QBs ... at any level.

Once he hit Ken Liberto with the 82-yard "miracle" touchdown pass that ended with 11 seconds remaining and gave Tech an unbelievable 42-39 victory over arch-rival Northwestern State at the State Fair Game in Shreveport, Bradshaw and the Bulldogs were unstoppable.

By season's end, we thought we had one of the nation's best teams in Division II. We knew we had the nation's best QB at that level.

Why Murfreesboro? Grantland Rice, the nation's best-known sportswriter for decades, was born in Murfreesboro and graduated from Vanderbilt University, 33 miles north, then worked for the Nashville Tennessean before going to the big time. This bowl was a way to honor the legendary Mr. Rice.

This was the fifth year in a row the game had been played at Middle Tennessee State University's old stadium -- which reminded us a lot of old Tech Stadium (the Bulldogs had moved into what became known as Joe Aillet Stadium early in the 1968 season).

On Friday, as the Tech team got off the plane in Nashville (and took buses to Murfreesboro), we knew it would be colder than Louisiana. But the weather talk was ominous -- very cold and possible sleet/snow. It all arrived the next day.

At the stadium on gameday, it was about 20 degrees, with a strong wind -- so the wind-chill factor left it feeling like about 0 degrees. It was already sleeting, then came snow flurries. For Louisiana kids, this was not football weather.

It was cold when the game started. It didn't get any better.

The press box seated only a dozen people, so the Tech coaches working upstairs -- Slaughter calling plays, Pat Collins calling the defense -- sat in desk chairs.

Slaughter remembered that not only was it cold, but near the end of the game, a huge fight broke out among the (few) Akron fans there, right below where they were sitting.

The game was one-sided -- for three quarters. By halftime, Tech had a 21-0 lead. But Akron was there for a reason, and it showed in the third quarter, when it cut the lead to 21-13.

Bradshaw had been terrific in the first half. In the fourth quarter, he was great. The colder it got, the better he got. He finished off Akron, winding up 19-of-33 passing for 261 yards and he ran for two touchdowns (16 and 8 yards). People forget that as good a passer as he was, he also was a strong, fearless runner.

But part of his success was because Spinks could not be covered. He caught 12 passes for 167 yards, with a 36-yarder a touchdown.

Bradshaw's play for the ages came early in the fourth quarter. He rolled out to his left, got hit by at least six Akron players and with three of them draped on him, he got off a pass to tight end Larry Brewer for a 6-yard touchdown.

"That play, that game is what sold NFL scouts on him," Slaughter remembered.

The game was, pardon the pun, a warmup for Terry's pro career in Pittsburgh, where he played cold-weather games for 12 years and won most of them.

"How cold was it?" one of Tech's offensive linemen that day, Jesse Carrigan, said. "The [Tech] band couldn't march at halftime because their wind instruments were frozen. And there must have been 50 people in the stadium watching the game."

Carrigan also offered that Tech's offensive line -- Butch Williams, Eric Moss, John Harper, Glenn Murphy and Carrigan -- played well that day. Bradshaw would agree.

The attendance probably was around 3,000. That's a guess: there's no official record. Not many people from the Murfreesboro area attended. The NCAA noticed. The next few years, the Grantland Rice Bowl was played in Baton Rouge's Memorial Stadium.

Tech has won a few bowl games since that first one, but that bitter December day in Murfreesboro, 1968, that was a beautiful day.