The 59th Rose Bowl Game

Rich Shmelter historian, podcaster and author of multiple gridiron books including The USC Trojans Football Encyclopedia joins us to chat about this 60th Rose Bowl between USC and Ohio State.

The USC Trojans and Ohio State Buckeyes met quite a bit in Rose Bowl games, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. The  59th edition of the New Year’s Day college bowl game, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on Monday, January 1, 1973, was one of those meetings. Ohio State still had Woody Hayes on the sidelines, and Southern Cal had their maestro of the bench, John Mckay, at the helm. This was the first season, other than wartime that Freshmen could play on the varsity rosters. The Trojans were unblemished at 11-0 on the season, while the Buckeyes suffered a single loss to Michigan State in early November. The story of this contest, at least in the pre-game hype, was the backfields of both teams. Future Heisman winner Archie Griffin was a freshman and played in his first of four Rose Bowl games. They had Anthony Davis and Sam Cunningham as a one-two rushing punch on the USC offense. The game was tied at halftime, but Daivs took over the second half, scoring four touchdowns for USC and providing a cushion on the score that Ohio State could not overcome. The Final Score was the Trojans 42 and the Buckeyes 17. Cunningham was the game MVP.

USC stays Number 1 02 Jan 1973, Tue The Miami Herald (Miami, Florida) Newspapers.com

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: Rich Shmelter's The USC Trojans Football Encyclopedia, Newspapers.com, YouTube, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com.

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of public domain images of USC and Ohio State logos along with a football image.