The 61st 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 61st Rose Bowl between USC and Ohio State.

The 62nd Rose Bowl would be the rubber match of the three consecutive years where Southern Cal and Ohio State would meet in Rose Bowl Stadium for the annual game. They split the first two games, each winning comfortably with second-half surges. The legendary coaching minds of John McKay and Woody Hayes would once again square off against each other on the Tournament of Roses gridiron grass. Each school suffered only one loss on their regular season slate; USC was upset by Arkansas early, while OSU took one on the chin from Michigan State. The starting QBs remained the same since the last Bowl game, with Cornelius Greened under center for the Buckeyes and Pat Haden barking signals for the Trojans. The first half of this prize fight was low scoring, USC struck first with a Chris Limahelu 30-yard field goal, and Ohio State replied in the second quarter with a 2-yard TD scamper by Champ Henson and a successful PAT from Tom Klaban. The Halftime score was 7-3, OSU. In the third quarter, unlike the two previous meetings, this one was a stalemate with no scoring, but that all changed in the final stanza.  The Trojans tied the game on a Jim Obradovich 9-yard pass from Haden and a Limahelu kick afterward. Ohio State responded with a Greene 3-yard run and a PAT kick by Klaban. The Buckeyes padded the lead to 17-10 on Klaban's 32-yard kick between the pipes.
USC responded when J K McKay grabbed a 38-yard pass from Haden with two minutes remaining to make it a one-point game. It was decision time for McKay. There was not an overtime session back in those days, so instead of making the safe play to tie the score with a one-point PAT kick, he opted to go for two. McKay was rewarded for this decision when Pat Haden found Shelton Diggs open to convert the two-pointer to take the lead. Ohio State got the ball back with time for one more drive. It ended with no time left on a Limahelu 62-yard field goal attempt that fell just yards shy of giving the Buckeyes the win! The Final score was sealed with an 18-17 USC victory. Haden took home the MVP honors in possibly the most exciting game in the history of the Rose Bowl. In the afterglow, the UPI coaches poll chose USC as the Nation's top team, while Oklahoma topped the AP and the UPI took Alabama as the best in the country.

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.