1999 Cotton Bowl Classic

The 1999 Southwestern Bell Cotton Bowl Classic was a post-season college football game played on January 1, 1999. It pitted the Texas Longhorns against the Southeastern Conference (SEC) West champions Mississippi State Bulldogs. This was the first Cotton Bowl Classic broadcast by Fox.
 
This game was the first time Texas had reached the post-season since the 1996 season. It was the first bowl game for Texas under new head coach Mack Brown. Texas had compiled an 8–3 season record.
  
Meanwhile, Mississippi State had compiled an 8–3 regular season record under head coach Jackie Sherrill. They won the SEC West division title before falling to Tennessee, 24–14, in the SEC Championship game. The loss knocked them to 8–4 coming into the bowl game.

Behind the rushingseason before Marlborough ended up 4-20.

Bennett, 76, was a main force that got the team, Post 132, up and running in 1980 and was the team’s GM the entire time.

"It was a lot of fun for a lot of years," he says. "We used to be able to take kids from Hudson, Hudson Catholic and Nashoba, and we were lucky to have some very good Marlborough High players." Hudson eventually got its own team. Hudson Catholic closed several years ago.

"When Hudson got a team about eight, nine years ago, it hurt our program," says Bennett. "Luckily, we had some good players from Marlborough. We could put out a competitive team." But the end was in sight.

"Eventually it started to die out," says Bennett.

It became more difficult in recent