Pregame Buildup
The matchup of No. 21 Indiana and No. 22 Virginia Tech was the first matchup of ranked teams in Independence Bowl history. Despite that fact, the bowl had difficulty selling tickets for the game. Slightly more than 33,000 tickets were sold by the day of the game, far less than the stadium's 50,459-seat capacity. In exchange for their participation in the game, each team received $700,000, the minimum payout required by the NCAA at that time. Spread bettors favored Virginia Tech to win by three points. The matchup was Indiana's first time playing Virginia Tech, and was the first time Virginia Tech played any team from the Big Ten.
Virginia Tech's turnaround from a 2–8–1 season in 1992 was the largest single-season turnaround in school history and was the second-best in the country that year. Tech hoped to improve upon a 1–4 all-time record in bowl games, while Indiana hoped to do likewise for its 3–4 historical bowl-game record. In the week prior to the game, bad weather in Virginia caused travel delays that prevented many fans and the Virginia Tech marching band from arriving at the game early. Two days prior to the Independence Bowl, Tech was shocked by the death of Dr. Richard Bullock, who served as the team's physician from 1971 to 1988. Bullock designed a special football neck protector worn by players during the 1980s and 1990s before being phased out in favor of more advanced padding.
Read more about this topic: 1993 Independence Bowl
Famous quotes containing the word buildup:
“I think those Southern writers [William Faulkner, Carson McCullers] have analyzed very carefully the buildup in the South of a special consciousness brought about by the self- condemnation resulting from slavery, the humiliation following the War Between the States and the hope, sometimes expressed timidly, for redemption.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)