Jan. 2

1961 — George Blanda passes for three touchdowns and kicks a field goal and the extra points to give the Houston Oilers a 24-16 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers in the first American Football League championship game.

1966 — Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung gain 201 yards on 4 inches of snow at Lambeau Field to lead the Green Bay Packers to a 23-12 victory over the Cleveland Browns and their third championship in five years.

1982 — Rolf Benirschke's 29-yard field goal at 13:52 of overtime ends one of the wildest and highest-scoring playoff games as the San Diego Chargers beat the Miami Dolphins 41-38.

1985 — Nevada-Las Vegas beats Utah State 142-140 in triple overtime as both teams set an NCAA record for total points. The Runnin Rebels score a record 93 points in the second half, and coach Jerry Tarkanian gets his 600th victory.

1987 — No. 2 Penn State beats No. 1 Miami 14-10 in the Fiesta Bowl for the national championship.

1995 — Florida State beats Florida 23-17 in the Sugar Bowl to give coach Bobby Bowden an NCAA-record 10 consecutive bowl wins.

1996 — No. 1 Nebraska demolishes No. 2 Florida 62-24 in the Fiesta Bowl, making them the first repeat champions in 16 years.

2000 — Kurt Warner joins Dan Marino as the only quarterbacks in NFL history with 40 touchdown passes in a season, and Marshall Faulk breaks Barry Sanders' total yardage record in the St. Louis Rams' 38-31 loss to Philadelphia.

2001 — Jose Theodore becomes the sixth NHL goalie to score a goal in a regular-season game and stops 32 shots as Montreal blanks the New York Islanders 3-0.

2002 — Carolina's Ron Francis becomes the fifth player in NHL history to record 500 goals and 1,000 assists when he scores in the Hurricanes' 6-3 loss to Boston.

2005 — The Pittsburgh Steelers win their 14th straight to match the record set by Miami in 1972 and become the fourth team in NFL history to finish 15-1.

2005 — Peyton Manning shatters the single-season passer rating record by finishing the season with a 121.1 rating, well ahead of the 112.8 set by San Francisco's Steve Young in 1994.

2009 — Mississippi beats Texas Tech 47-34 in the final Cotton Bowl played in the stadium of the same name. Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell ends up with the most career touchdowns in major college football (four in this game made it 134, breaking the record of 131 set by Hawaii's Colt Brennan) and first player with two 5,000-yard passing seasons.

2009 — Utah finishes 13-0 with a convincing 31-17 win over No. 4 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. The Utes are the first team from a non-BCS conference to win two BCS bowls.

2009 — Doug Weight has a pair of assists for the New York Islanders in a 5-4 loss to Phoenix to become the eighth American-born player to reach the 1,000-point mark.