The 1994 Sun Bowl was a

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game, or simply bowl, is one of a number of postseason college football games primarily played by NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. For most of its history, the FBS did not use a playoff tourname ...

played on December 29, 1994. The game pitted the unranked

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and ...

against the No. 19

North Carolina Tar Heels The North Carolina Tar Heels (also Carolina Tar Heels) are the college sports in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to ...

. The Tar Heels were led by eventual Texas head coach

Mack Brown William Mack Brown (born August 27, 1951) is an American former college football coach. Brown most recently coached at the University of North Carolina, where he had two stints, first from 1988 until 1997, and again from 2019 until his firing ...

. The game was a seesaw offensive battle. Texas, down 31–21 midway through the fourth quarter, mounted a comeback to gain a 35–31 victory, with

Priest Holmes Priest Anthony Holmes (born October 7, 1973) ''www.databasefootball.com.'' Retrieved February 13, 2016. is an American former professional football player who was a running back for 11 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He started h ...

's leap into the endzone proving to be the winning points.

had 161 yards on 27 carries for four touchdowns to lead the Longhorns to victory and give him MVP honors. A record 50,612 attended this game, a high for both the bowl game and the stadium. This was the first time since 1988 that the Sun Bowl was played under its original name after five years of title sponsorship from

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Scoring summary

First quarter * North Carolina – Curtis Johnson 11-yd run (Tripp Pignetti kick); Drive: 10 plays, 78 yards, 11:06 remaining * Texas – Priest Holmes 1-yd run (Phil Dawson kick); Drive: 9 plays, 72 yards, 4:37 remaining Second quarter * Texas – Norman Watkins 8-yd fumble return (Dawson kick), 14:49 remaining * North Carolina – Pignetti 25-yd field goal; Drive: 12 plays, 72 yards, 9:57 remaining * Texas – Holmes 1-yd run (Dawson kick); Drive: 9 plays, 64 yards, 6:05 remaining * North Carolina – Marcus Wall 8-yd pass from Mike Thomas (Pignetti kick); Drive: 9 plays, 74 yards, :28 remaining Fourth quarter * North Carolina – Wall 82-yd punt return (Pignetti kick), 13:35 remaining * North Carolina – Octavus Barnes 50-yd pass from Thomas (Pignetti kick); Drive: 5 plays, 79 yards, 9:13 remaining * Texas – Holmes 9-yd run (Dawson kick); Drive: 8 plays, 68 yards, 6:35 remaining * Texas – Holmes 5-yd run (Dawson kick); Drive: 10 plays, 68 yards, 1:17 remaining

Statistics

References

Sun Bowl The Sun Bowl is a college football bowl game that has been played since 1935 in the southwestern United States at El Paso, Texas. Along with the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl, it is the second-oldest bowl game in the country, behind the Rose Bowl. ...

Sun Bowl North Carolina Tar Heels football bowl games Texas Longhorns football bowl games Bowl Coalition December 1994 sports events in the United States 1994 in sports in Texas {{Texas-sport-stub