Throwback Thursday: No. 8 Arizona State topples North Carolina in blizzard to win 1970 Peach Bowl

The Sun Devils will be returning to the contest that launched the program onto the national stage 54 years ago.

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl - Ole Miss v Penn State
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl - Ole Miss v Penn State | Alex Slitz/GettyImages

Arizona State football played in its first bowl game way back in 1940, incredibly tying Catholic University 0-0 in the Sun Bowl. The team would play in three more bowl games over the next decade (all losses) before entering a 20-year postseason drought.

Enter head coach Frank Kush and the 1970 Sun Devil team, undefeated (10-0) and traveling to the East Coast to take on a power conference foe in the North Carolina Tar Heels at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia.

The game would turn out to be the the competition that launched Arizona State football into the national spotlight and forced the college football powers that be to take the program seriously from then on.

The 1970 Peach Bowl was the Sun Devils' first major bowl invite, and they would continue to receive them under Kush's leadership, appearing in five Fiesta Bowls (including three straight from the inaugural game in 1971).

1970 Peach Bowl: ASU 48 UNC 26

Rain storms bogged down the turf at Grant Field for days prior to the game but on the day of, a wild snow storm tore through Atlanta and forced the two teams to play in true football weather.

In front of a crowd over just over 52,000 spectators, Arizona State jumped out to an early 21-7 lead before the Tar Heels exploded in the second quarter to take a 26-21 lead into the halftime locker room.

But Kush rallied his boys to finish the job, scoring the next 27 points and shutting out North Carolina in the second half to claim the program's first undefeated season since 1957 and officially put college football in the Southwest on the map.

The 1970 team would have several players make it to the NFL like wide receiver J.D. Hill and defensive back Prentice McCray, thanks to the national exposure the Peach Bowl victory offered.

Now the 2024 team will return to Atlanta, albeit in a much different stadium, to play in the same contest 54 years later. This time, however, the Sun Devils will try to repeat the 1970 team's achievement and take things a step further, competing for the program's first ever national championship as part of the College Football Playoff.

Although true Sun Devil fans know that the team probably should've been named 1975 national champions, but that's a story for another time.

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