The 83rd and 84th Rose Bowl Games

The tour of the historic Rose Bowl games takes us the the 1997 and 1998 games. We take a peak at the memories of the people, teams and events that made these games special.

The 83rd annual Rose Bowl game was played on January 1, 1997. The 10-1 Ohio State Buckeyes of head Coach John Cooper took on the Bruce Snyder Arizona State Sun Devils and their stellar 11-0 record. Ohio State got on the board first in the game with quarterback Stanley Jackson's toss of a nine-yard touchdown pass to true freshman wideout David Boston, capping a drive that saw Jackson scramble for some twenty yards on a third down. Josh Jackson’s PAT was good, making it 7–0 in favor of the Buckeyes. ASU crawled back into the contest right before the half ended on a 25-yard TD pass play from Jake Plummer to Ricky Boyer, tying the game at 7's after Robert Nycz’s extra point sailed true. The second half was just as thrilling as the first. ASU took the lead on a Nycz 37-yard field goal. The Buckeyes regained the lead when Dimitrious Stanley hauled in a 72-yard pass from Joe Germaine to make it 14 to 10 OSU.
In the fourth quarter, Jake Plummer scrambled for an 11-yard scoring run to put ASU once again with 1:40 remaining. Ohio State still needed to be done as the rallied to finish the scoring with 19 ticks left on a David Boston 5-yard pass reception from Germaine to provide a 20-17 final score. Buckeye QB, Joe Germaine was named the Rose Bowl Player Of The Game for his fine play, oincluding that memorable last minute scoring drive.

On January 1, 1998, the 84th Rose Bowl Game featured the top-ranked team in the nation, the 11-0 Michigan Wolverines of Coach Lloyd Carr, playing against the Washington State Cougars of Coach Mike Price, who had a very respectable record of 10-1. This one was a close game throughout. The teams went to the locker room tied at 7. Cougar signal caller Ryan Leaf connected with Kevin McKenzie on a 15-yard play to take a 7–0 lead. Washington State forced  Michigan to punt, and Leaf then marched the Cougars into the Michigan red zone, but Heisman winner Charles Woodson picked off a Leaf pass in the end zone to thwart the threat. A bit later, after trading possessions, UM QB Brian Griese found Tai Streets at full gallop down the right sideline for a 53-yard touchdown pass to tie the game. Leaf led the Cougars on a dramatic 99-yard drive to put Washington State back into the lead capped off by Shawn Tims taking a reverse play 14 yards for the score. The extra point was no good, to make the score 13-7. Michigan responded on a touchdown drive of their own when Griese connected with Streets again this time from 58-yards out, on a well timed play-action call.  A bit later Jermain Tuman built upon the UM lead when he caught a Griese pass and scored. WSU answered with a long frive of their own that ended with a Rian Lindell 48-yard field goal with 7:25 to play to make the score 21–16. The Wolverines had a conservative, time consuming series that resulted in a pooch punt by A J Feely from field goal formation left Washington State on its own 7-yard-line with 29 ticks left of the clock. Leaf tried to rally the troops for a comeback getting the ball to the Michigan 26 yard-line. Confusion ensued and they lost time trying to clock the ball with an apparent 1 second left. However referee Dick Burleson declared that the quarterback spiked the ball after the clock had reached zeroes and ended the game.  The final score was 21-16 Michigan. Brian Griese was named as the game’s Most Outstanding Player.  It was the final season of the Big Ten versus Pac-10 games as the BCS started up the following season. This Big Ten win evened the series of the two conferences playing each other in Pasadena at 26 wins for each Conference.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: Newspapers.com, Wikipedia.com, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com.