This is a couple of days old, but I happened upon it randomly today. The Atlantic did a review of the New York Times' sports page on New Year's Day from 100, 75, 50, and 25 years ago.

A century ago there wasn't really a sports page, and the coverage centered around boxing and local sports. It also mentions the New York Athletic Club being concerned about people "winking at the rules governing amateurism." That winking hasn't stopped since.

In each of the other time periods though, football is the king of the New Year's Day sports page (as well it should be). In particular, check out the section on 1937. That year LSU was in the Sugar Bowl, Mississippi State was in the Orange Bowl, and Auburn was in the Bacardi Bowl in Havana, Cuba.