Retro 1960 College Football Bowl Binge!

Your Retro Bowl Binge '60 card set will allow you to replay seven of the nine post-season bowl games (hosted by the cities of Philadelphia, Houston, Miami, New Orleans, Dallas, Pasadena and Jacksonville) from this exciting season of college football! The teams and games are identified by somewhat modifed names (to avoid infringement of licensing rights). In alphabetical order: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Georgia Technical, Louisiana Classic, Missouri, Mississippi, Penn Classic, South Carolina Orange, Syracuse, Texas, Texas Gospel, Washington and Wisconsin. You also get two other ‘59 teams who didn’t get to participate in a bowl game (Oklahoma and Oregon), but were certainly bowl-worthy; Oklahoma won its conference but a new conference rule had been implemented (soon revoked) that precluded a team from playing in a bowl game in consecutive season, so second-place Missouri represented the conference instead. Oregon finished 8-2, third-best among independent schools, but basically didn’t have a bowl game to which it could be invited.

How did this set come about? Well, creating the 1940 Pro Season as a freebie for our Christmas Sale sparked a curiosity about the era of single-platoon football. We were aware that both college and pro football had moved to unlimited substitution with the 1950 season, but it raised our eyebrows to learn that college football reverted back to single-platoon rules in 1953. Why did they DO this? Essentially, colleges were concerned about the extra costs involved in fielding larger teams. There was also a "purist" sentiment prevalent among college football influencers of that day who felt football players were meant to play both ways, similar to hockey and basketball. Long story short, substitution rules were re-introduced for the 1953 college football season.

Almost immediately, smart programs devised ways around it. Many large schools forged a platoon-style of organization, where the first unit would play for most of a quarter and then, if desired, the entire unit would be replaced by a second unit of eleven fresh players. The biggest schools even had third units, which would "mop up" in blowout wins. Thus the smaller schools and lesser programs were at even more of a disadvantage than before.

Rules were tweaked to help these schools out. By the 1959 season, any player who started a quarter was allowed to re-enter the game once that quarter. Referees were made adjudicators of which players had started, who'd left, and who could re-enter. Often these substitutions occurred en masse, with long lines of players checking in at the sideline, sometimes from both teams. This caused long delays in game action while refs sorted it all out. Finally, in 1963, college football scrapped the one-platoon idea and adopted the unlimited substitution rules the pro leagues had been using all along.

But for a decade or so, college football was very different from the pros in the way players were deployed. Star players made plays on both sides of the line of scrimmage. Specialists were unheard of--the role of placekicker or return man was filled by a starting player with best skills. Stamina, durability and all-around versatility were held in high esteem. Thus, this set of the nation's top college squads from 1959-60 college football bowl season represents a sort of "lost chapter of football history," which you can now experience on your game table.

• As an aside, the 2024 winner of college football’s top award was a two-way player, Colorado’s Travis Hunter. Imagine EVERY player doing what Hunter did! Well, that’s the way it was in the 1950s, and this set will allow you to experience it.

We created these teams in a truncated format, partly because of time constraints, mostly because of the difficulty in securing data. This format will work flawlessly for express and can also be adapted for full-play use with a little poetic license—we include suggested guidelines with your set. Reserves are not listed in the position boxes, and defensive players are not identified by position. Substitutions are assumed to be occurring, with key players staying in the game as much as possible.

If you love old-school college football, or if you just want to get a taste of what it was like for players to play both ways full-time, this Retro ‘60 Bowl Binge card set for Second Season is for YOU!