The 1978 Garden State Bowl

Garden State Bowl

The Garden State Bowl was an annual post-season college football bowl game played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, from 1978 to 1981...

, part of the 1978 bowl game season, took place on December 16, 1978, at Giants Stadium

Giants Stadium

Giants Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The building itself was 230.5 m long, 180.5 m wide and 44 m high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 54 m high to...

 in East Rutherford

East Rutherford, New Jersey

East Rutherford is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 8,913. It is an inner-ring suburb of New York City, located west of Midtown Manhattan....

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. The competing teams were the , which competed as a football independent, and the , representing the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10). In the inaugural edition of the Garden State Bowl, Arizona State came-from-behind to defeat Rutgers 34–18.