PASADENA, Calif. — The 2024 Rose Bowl features Alabama vs Michigan. The historic game, played in a historic stadium in Pasadena, California, has a history that stretches back more than 100 years. Take a looks at some historic moments, trivia, and stats from this iconic game, courtesy of the Rose Bowl.
1902 - First Tournament of Roses East-West football game is played – the first of its kind in the nation. The lopsided score (Michigan 49, Sanford 0) retires Tournament football for 16 years.
1916 - Football and the "Rose Bowl Game" are reinstated at Tournament Park, with Washington State defeating Brown, 14-0.
1920's - The stadium was built and named "The Rose Bowl," dedicated to hosting its first college football game. Start of play was delayed more than an hour after Penn State's team was stuck in traffic. USC defeats Penn State, 14-2. This original stadium seated 57,000 and cost $272,198…nearly $3.4 million in 2010 dollars.
1935 - New powerful "brighter than daylight" lights installed for the 1935 Rose Bowl game
1936 - This game goes down in history as the beginning of the Rose Bowl Game sellout era that still exists today. All 84,784 seats were filled with a large portion of them occupied by fans that traveled from Texas to watch their Mustangs play.
WATCH: Rare Rose Bowl game footage, 1939 (Source: Library of Congress)
1942 - In the first and only Rose Bowl Game to be played outside of Pasadena, Oregon State defeated Duke in Durham, N.C., due to the blackout on the West Coast caused by the war with Germany and Japan and an Army decree that grounded all sporting events on the West Coast.
1947 - Groundbreaking Rose Bowl Game agreement signed between Pacific Coast and Big Ten Conferences is the oldest college football agreement between two major conferences in the United States. Illinois vs. UCLA is the First Game played under Big 10/ Pac 10 Tournament of Roses Pact. 1953 - USC defeats Wisconsin, 7-0, for the Pac-8’s first victory since the PCC-Big Ten agreement was signed in 1946.
1947 - The first local telecast of the Rose Bowl Game airs on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. Audience watched Michigan dismantle USC, 49-0.
1950 - The fourth expansion for the stadium increased capacity to 100,983. The Rose Bowl Game became the first bowl game to have 100,000 spectators in attendance.
1951 - (AP) With a sell-out crowd of 100,000 in the stands, gridders from the Universities of Michigan and California take the field for warm up practice before the 37th Rose Bowl game at Pasadena, Ca., Jan. 1, 1951. Michigan scored twice in the last few minutes for a 14 to 6 victory.
1955 - UCLA was the PCC champion but was barred from returning by the conference’s “no-repeat” rule.
1956 - The Rose Bowl featured two of the most racially integrated college football teams of the day with six African American players for the UCLA Bruins and seven for the Michigan State Spartans.
1962 - This Rose Bowl Game became the first college football game to be broadcast nationally in color.
1968 - First “live” satellite beaming of Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game around the world.
1969 - The Rose Bowl Game serves as the kickoff to the 100th anniversary of intercollegiate football.
1972 - Permanent seats are installed in the north and south ends increasing seating capacity to 104,594. Five concession stands are constructed.
1973 - Attendance of 106,869 is the largest crowd in bowl game history featuring USC and Ohio State.
1978 - The Rose Bowl Game becomes the first satellite TV broadcast of a college bowl game to the Far East.
1980 - Heisman Trophy winner Charles White set a Rose Bowl game record for most yards gained (247 yards) in USC’s 17-10 victory over Michigan.
1982 - Rose Bowl becomes the official home of the University of California at Los Angeles football team.
1984 - In the 1984 Rose Bowl Game, a prank played by students from nearby California Institute of Technology altered the scoreboard display, an incident reminiscent of the Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961. A pair of Caltech student’s evaded security at the Rose bowl hacked into the electronic system and installed a computer that could be remotely controlled to alter the display on the stadium’s digital scoreboard. During the game, the students from Caltech remotely altered the scoreboard display to show the teams playing in the game as Caltech and MIT, in place of UCLA and Illinois. One of the prank’s perpetrators had received approval from his Caltech professor for the prank, which earned college credit for the course “Experimental Projects in Electrical Circuits”.
1985 - Ohio State’s Rich Spangler made the longest field goal in Rose Bowl Game history (51 yards).
1987 - The Rose Bowl plays host to the Super Bowl for the third time, where 101,063 watch quarterback Phil Simms earn most valuable player honors for his 22-for-25 passing performance, 368 yards and three touchdowns in leading the New York Giants to a 39-20 win over the Denver Broncos.
1988 - First "live" network broadcast of the Rose Bowl Game in Spanish.
1991 - This Rose Bowl Game was the highest-scoring contest ever with the Washington Huskies defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes, 46-34.
1994 - Rose Bowl Game celebrated 80 years with the theme "Entertainment on Parade." The University of Wisconsin celebrated a 21-16 victory over UCLA. This was the first time in 30 years the Badgers played in the Rose Bowl.
1998 - Rose Bowl joins the Bowl Alliance, a move that will bring the top college football teams to Pasadena every four years. Under the agreement, the Rose Bowl will continue playing host to the Pac-10 and Big Ten champions, while gaining the national title game in 2002 and every four years thereafter.
2006 - The 92nd Rose Bowl Game doubled as the national championship game. In a highly charged game, the No. 2-ranked Texas Longhorns defeated the No. 1-ranked USC Trojans, 41-38, ending the Trojans' reign as national champions. The television broadcast attracted 35.6 million viewers, making it the most watched U.S. television program of the 2005-2006 season.
2010 - The BCS title game returned to Pasadena with unbeaten college football powers Texas and Alabama deciding the national championship in front of 94,906. Four plays into the game, Texas quarterback Colt McCoy was knocked out of the game with a shoulder injury and the Longhorns – unbeaten in three previous BCS bowl games and boasting the No. 1 rushing defense in the country – never recovered. Alabama’s Heisman Trophy-winning running back Mark Ingram ran for 116 yards and two touchdowns as the Crimson Tide captured a 37-21 victory and their first national title since 1992.
2018 - The 104th Rose Bowl Game hosted No. 2 Oklahoma vs No.3 Georgia in the stadium’s first BCS overtime in history. The Bulldogs completed a comeback over the Sooners in a double overtime thriller, winning 54-48. The matchup nearly brought the Rose Bowl to capacity, tallying 80,072 in attendance.
