he Times-Picayune's New Orleans Tricentennial project, 300 for 300, continues with a look at the inaugural Sugar Bowl 82 years ago.

THEN

The New Orleans Mid-Winter Sports Association began a New Year's Day college football bowl game to attract holiday visitors to New Orleans. Tulane defeated Temple 20-14 in the first Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 1935. "Rooters Go Wild When Wearers of Green Pull Victory Out of What Looked Like Defeat," read The Times-Picayune headline the next day.

The Times-Picayune archive 

NOW

The Allstate Sugar Bowl is one of six bowl games that rotate as sites of the four-team College Football Playoff. The Sugar Bowl will host a CFP Semifinal on Jan. 1, 2018, and it will host the CFP Championship for the first time Jan. 13, 2020.

TRIVIA

• A crowd of 22,026 showed up at Tulane Stadium on New Year's Day 1935 to watch the first Sugar Bowl.
• The game marked the end of legendary Greenie Monk Simons' Tulane playing career - "in a blaze of glory," according to the T-P.
• In years when the Sugar Bowl is not part of the College Football Playoff, the highest-ranked teams from the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences not in the CFP are matched in the Sugar Bowl - Auburn and Oklahoma this year.
• A total of 27 college football national champions have played in the Sugar Bowl.
• On seven occasions, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in college football have met in the Sugar Bowl.

LSU coaches and players surround the crystal ball with No. 1 signs after defeating Oklahoma in the college football championship game in the 2004 Sugar Bowl.The Times-Picayune archive 

N.O. DNA

The week between Christmas and New Year's in New Orleans has been defined by the Sugar Bowl for more than 80 years, filling the French Quarter and local hotels and restaurants with boisterous boosters in opposing team colors. Thousands of locals have attended the Sugar Bowl for generations, producing at least one lifetime memory for LSU fans: the Tigers' 2003 BCS National Championship win over Oklahoma in the 2004 Sugar Bowl.