Las Vegas Bowl history: Houston’s 1983 Mirage Bowl

Leading up to the Las Vegas Bowl between Houston and San Diego State, the Review-Journal will provide glimpses into each school’s football history. We’ll take a look at each school once per day until game day on Dec. 17 at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Mirage Bowl

Date: 1983

Houston and Southern Methodist are approximately 250 miles from each other, but in 1983 the two schools traveled more than 6,000 miles to play a football game in Tokyo, Japan.

The two former Southwest Conference rivals played in the Mirage Bowl, an annual game played in Japan, on Nov. 26, 1983 in the National Olympic Stadium. It remains the longest road trip for both teams in school history.

Southern Methodist, which was ranked No. 6 at the time, won the game 34-12 to finish the regular season 10-1. The Mustangs went on to lose to Alabama 28-7 in the Sun Bowl and dropped to No. 12 in the year-end rankings.

Houston dropped to 4-7 following the Mirage Bowl, ending its season.

The Mirage Bowl, which later became known as the Coca-Cola Classic, was played from 1977 until 1993 in three different stadiums in Japan before becoming defunct. Wisconsin defeated Michigan State 41-20 in the final game to earn a spot in the 1994 Rose Bowl.

Ben Gotz can be reached at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.