The 2005 Sugar Bowl was a American college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Auburn Tigers at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 3, 2005. Virginia Tech represented the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) after winning the ACC football championship. Auburn represented the Southeastern Conference (SEC), finishing the regular season undefeated. Pre-game media coverage of the game focused on Auburn being left out of the Bowl Championship Series national championship game because of its lower ranking in the BCS poll, a point of controversy for Auburn fans and others. For Auburn, running backs Carnell Williams (pictured) and Ronnie Brown were considered among the best at their position; for Tech, senior quarterback Bryan Randall had had a record-breaking season. Both teams also had high-ranked defenses and in a defensive struggle, Auburn earned a 16–13 victory despite a late-game rally by Virginia Tech. In recognition of his game-winning performance, Auburn quarterback Jason Campbell was named the game's most valuable player. Several players from each team were selected in the 2005 NFL Draft and went on to careers in the National Football League.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sugar_Bowl
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1440:
French knight Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest known serial killers, was taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais
1831:
The John Bull (pictured), the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world, ran for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull_(locomotive)
1916:
Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during the First World War, were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme in Somme, Picardy, France, leading to strategic Allied victory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme
1944:
American and Australian forces landed on the Japanese-occupied island of Morotai, starting the Battle of Morotai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Morotai
1963:
A bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded in the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, US, killing four children and injuring at least 22 others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
rally cap: (US, baseball) A baseball cap worn inside-out and backwards, or in another unconventional manner, by players or fans, as a talisman in order to will a team into a come-from-behind rally late in the game. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rally_cap
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs, equally to the honest man and to the gentleman: to the first, as doing to others as we would ourselves be done by; to the last, as indispensable to the liberality of the character. By candor we are not to understand trifling and uncalled for expositions of truth; but a sentiment that proves a conviction of the necessity of speaking truth, when speaking at all; a contempt for all designing evasions of our real opinions; and a deep conviction that he who deceives by necessary implication, deceives willfully. In all the general concerns, the publick has a right to be treated with candor. Without this manly and truly republican quality, republican because no power exists in the country to intimidate any from its exhibition, the institutions are converted into a stupendous fraud. --James Fenimore Cooper https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Fenimore_Cooper