RB Respect Month Vol. 2, Day 20: Tony Temple's record-setting 2008 Cotton Bowl

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Welcome to day 20 of Running Back Respect Month™! Yesterday, we gave LSU legend Kevin Faulk his well-deserved flowers. Here's where we're at today, and how the rest of the month looks:

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Today: Tony Temple vs. Arkansas (2008 Cotton Bowl)

The storylines for the January 1, 2008 Cotton Bowl Game between Missouri and Arkansas were JUICY.

Exactly a month earlier, the Tigers had been 60 minutes away from playing in the BCS National Championship against Ohio State. Instead, a 38-17 loss to Oklahoma –their second loss to the Sooners that season– not only knocked them out of the title game, but controversially kicked them from the BCS altogether in favor of hated rival Kansas, whom the Tigers had already beaten at the end of the regular season. Even in the pre-opt out era, the question was still whether Mizzou would be deflated, or fired up to play in the Cotton Bowl after being so close to a title.

On the other side, you had the soap opera-esque drama of Arkansas football in 2007. A year after being a couple of plays from winning the SEC Championship, they were at the end of a grueling season engulfed by off-field rumors centered around the job status of Head Coach Houston Nutt:

Just over a month earlier, the 7-4 Hogs stunned the college football world with one of the greatest spoiler performances ever. Arkansas beat No. 1 LSU in a 50-48 three-overtime classic in Baton Rouge, costing the Tigers a shot at the national championship. (Or so we thought, at the time.) After the game, Nutt gave an all-time on-field interview:

Three days later, he walked away from the job he'd been at for a decade. Nutt resigned when he'd reportedly been offered a contract extension. In classic SEC coaching drama fashion, he was Ole Miss' head coach less than 24 hours later. The move left Defensive Coordinator Reggie Herring as interim Head Coach for the Cotton Bowl.

All of that would've been more than enough storyline for a non-BCS game, but we're not done yet. Despite their states being literal next-door neighbors, Arkansas-Missouri had only ever played each other four times. That, plus both schools' proximity to the Cotton Bowl's Dallas location led to the quickest sellout in the game's history to that point. This one was going to feel like a BCS game, bowl status be damned.

Lastly, there was the on-field matchup. Missouri was defined by a high-octane passing offense, led by star quarterback Chase Daniel and his star-studded weapons in Jeremy Maclin, Martin Rucker, William Franklin, Chase Coffman, and Danario Alexander. Conversely, Arkansas punished teams on the ground. Behind the trio of Darren McFadden, Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis, the only teams who averaged more yards rushing than the Hogs that season were Navy, Air Force and Rich Rodriguez's West Virginia. It was a beautiful clash of styles in every regard. The cherry on top was that each team had a Heisman finalist in Daniel and McFadden:

Could the stereotypical Big 12 air attack piloted by Daniel outscore the stereotypical SEC physicality led by McFadden? It was a simple question that got completely ruined by Mizzou running back Tony Temple: