TRIVIA TIME!!!

Okay, next week is Michigan and, like Ohio State, they’ve played USC and UCLA enough that they’ll get their own article. This week, we’ll look at Iowa, Michigan State, and Minnesota’s collective efforts vs. the B1G’s newest, westest, additions.

To spice things up, a couple of impossible trivia questions with polls where you can vote. Answers in first comment, with spoiler prevention enabled.

1. Starting with the 1947 Rose Bowl, the first in which, by agreement, the winner of the Pacific Coast and Big Nine conferences met in the game, there have been five occasions in which the Rose Bowl featured a rematch of a regular season game. Which of this week’s B1G teams have been involved in one of these rematches?

2. Again, starting with the 1947 Rose Bowl, there have been five occasions in which a team has beaten BOTH Rose Bowl participants in the same season. Which of this week’s B1G teams have achieved this feat?

Good luck racking your brain wildly guessing. Let’s look at how each school has fared vs. USC and UCLA.

Iowa: 3-7 vs. USC

About as ghastly as you’d expect. Dropped the first game back in 1925. Fun note there: 1925 was legendary USC Howard Jones’s first year with the Trojans. From 1916-1923, he was Iowa’s coach, leading the Hawkeyes on a 20-game winning streak running from 1920-1923. While at USC, he coached Iowa native Marion Morrison, better known as John Wayne.

Anyway, Iowa won the next two, in 1950 and 1961, but USC won six straight after that, the first five (1962, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1976) being regular season games, and the sixth, a 38-17 thumping, coming in the 2003 Orange Bowl, ruining Iowa’s best season under Kirk Ferentz.

However, as the lead photo makes clear, Iowa did get a modicum of revenge, in their 49-24 drubbing of USC in the 2019 Holiday Bowl. I can’t believe it, either, but Iowa scored 49 points in a bowl game.

Iowa: 2-7 vs. UCLA (or 3-6 if you adjust for a forfeit)

Iowa lost the first five (1938, 1947, 1949, 1955, 1973), all by at least 15 points. However, they upset the #12 Bruins in Iowa City in 1974. After a loss in 1977 (that UCLA subsequently forfeited, but whatever), Iowa again upset a highly ranked UCLA team in 1981, knocking off the #6 ranked Bruins, 20-7. [Had UCLA won this game, they would have been an answer to my second trivia question, as they went on to defeat PAC-10 champs, Washington. Had UCLA defeated USC in the season finale, they would have won the PAC-10, and earned a rematch with Iowa in the 1982 Rose Bowl.]

Unfortunately the last matchup was the 1986 Rose Bowl, when, preceding the 2002 Hawkeyes, Hayden Fry’s best team also took on an LA school and got thumped. Any old-time Hawkeye fan will explain away the 45-28 loss to the underdog Bruins by noting 1) Ronnie Harmon’s four lost fumbles (was he paid off?), and 2) UCLA picked up a tell by the Iowa DT while watching film, allowing freshman RB Eric Ball to gash the Hawkeyes for 200+ yards and 4 TDs. However you break it down, it was a gruesome end to the season for a team that entered the game with an outside shot at a share of the national title.

Michigan State: 4-4 vs. USC

After splitting a home and home in 1963-1964, MSU had the misfortune of having their next three games vs. the Trojans come in years when USC won a national title, losing 21-17 in 1967, 51-6 in 1972, and 30-9 in 1978. However, Sparty has won the last three, picking up a 27-13 regular season win in 1987 and two bowl victories. While the 17-16 win in the 1990 Sun Bowl was nice and all, it’s the 20-17 win the 1988 Rose Bowl that any Spartan fan most celebrates. Ending a seven-game losing streak for the B1G in the Rose bowl (and a 1-13 stretch, and a 2-17 stretch), the Spartans notched their win in a very B1G way, with a tackling machine at LB (game MVP Percy Snow had 17 solo tackles), a lead back not afraid to pile up the carriers (Lorenzo White: 35-113-2), and an “opportunistic” passing attack (Bobby McAllister: 4-7-128). Two of McAllister’s completions were bombs to Andre Rison, the second an all-time great sandlot play (see below) late in the fourth to keep the game-winning drive alive.

If you’re old like me and remember Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen calling Rose Bowls in the 80s, this was the last of 37 consecutive Rose Bowls to be broadcast on NBC as ABC picked up the game the next year (enter Keith Jackson).

Michigan State: 3-3 vs. UCLA

Michigan State won the first three (1954, 1956, 1965) and lost the last three (1966, 1973, 1974). Sparty has a 2-1 edge in Rose Bowl matchups, winning in ‘54 and ‘56. However, the loss in ‘66 cost the #1 Spartans (a 14 point favorite) an undisputed national title. They won the Coaches’ poll, taken before bowl games, but lost the AP vote to Alabama, who won their bowl game.

I for one think any future matchups between these two teams should feature MSU in green jerseys and UCLA in baby blue.

Minnesota: 1-6-1 vs. USC

None of these have been postseason matchups, so let’s be quick. USC won in 1953, then Minnesota won in 1955. The tie came in 1965. Since the, the Trojans have won the last five: 1968, 1979, 1980, 2010, 2011. Minnesota deserves a little love for the 2011 game. In Jerry Kill’s first game as Gopher head coach, and against a Trojan team that would end the season ranked #6 (though bowl-less because of probation), Minnesota rallied from a 19-3 halftime deficit to close to 19-17. However, they couldn’t get over the hump, losing by that same score. However, the season wouldn’t contain many more highlights for Minnesota as they finished 3-9/2-6 (though they did beat Iowa in 2011, something they’ve only done once since).

Minnesota: 2-1 vs. UCLA

There was a home-and-home in 1977-1978 with the home team winning each game, but it’s Minnesota’s win the in 1962 Rose Bowl that merits some discussion.

My trivia questions started with the 1947 game, the first featuring a matchup of champions from the conferences that would become the PAC-12 and B1G. With the advent of the BCS in 1998, that tradition became likely to end once the Rose Bowl became site of the national title game, as happened in the 2002 Rose Bowl, a Miami beatdown of Nebraska.

However, it is NOT really the case that from 1947-2001, there was a contractual showdown of champions from the “West” and “East” conferences (as the really old-times had it). First, at various points, each conference had a “no repeat” rule, so there are multiple instances of a conference runner-up heading to Pasadena.

More easily forgotten, after the 1958 season, the nine-team Pacific Coast Conference (which featured all but Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah from today’s PAC-12, and included Idaho as team #9), imploded in the wake of a “pay-for-play” scandal (ah, amateurism). There’s a LOT more to this that is interesting, but for now, let’s limit it to the currently relevant detail that, in the wake of this scandal, the University of California system (which included Cal and UCLA) took steps to rededicate itself to principles of amateurism (though nobody told Sam Gilbert), and a UC system that stood together. Many UCLA fans thought this just meant Cal would be lead dog. Some of the commentary on UCLA leaving for the B1G a few weeks back touched on this a bit.

In any event, after the PCC imploded, it was essentially reconstituted in slow motion, starting as the Athletic Association of Western Universities. In 1959, that meant Cal, UCLA, USC, and Washington as charter members, and Stanford as an addition a few months later (still in time for the 1959 season). Washington State was added in 1962, and Oregon and Oregon State joined in 1964. While this conference did not officially become the PAC-8 until 1968, pretty much everybody was calling it the “PAC” for much of the 60s.

This all seems like an awful lot of work just to dump Idaho, huh?

Anyway...after the PCC imploded, there wasn’t really an agreement in place for a few years. The Rose Bowl invited the AAWU and B1G champions, but these invitations were accepted, not mandated. As evidenced by the 1962 Rose Bowl.

In the 1961 regular season, Ohio State went 8-0-1, won the B1G outright, and was ranked #2 in both polls. But the OSU faculty council voted against OSU accepting the Rose Bowl bid, so OSU didn’t go! Besides preventing a rematch with UCLA, this sparked quite a bit of protest in Columbus, though Woody Hayes largely restrained himself, only offering verbal criticism.

This opened the door for B1G runner-up Minnesota. Even though they won the B1G the previous year and had played in the 1961 Rose Bowl (which they lost, but still won the national title as both polls were taken before the bowl season), Minnesota returned for a second consecutive year. Thus, because of the AAWU’s implosion, and the absence of a formal agreement with the Rose Bowl for the 1961 and 1962 games, Minnesota was not prohibited by the “no repeat” rule from retuning to Pasadena, becoming the only B1G team to play in consecutive Rose Bowls from 1947-1972, when the B1G repealed it’s no repeat rule (OSU then immediately made the ‘73 and ‘74 Rose Bowls).

Minnesota made the most of this opportunity, beating UCLA (who won the 5-team AAWU with a 3-1 conference record) to notch their only Rose Bowl victory in school history.