The 85th and 86th Rose Bowl Games

We finally saw a Big-Ten Conference team win consecutive Rose Bowls at the end of the twentieth-century. Historian Larry Schmitt joins us to discuss the Dominance of the Wisconsin Badgers and their punishing runner. You can find more from Larry on Big Blue Interactive and the Gridiron Uniform Database

The 1999 Rose Bowl was the 85th Rose Bowl game and was played on Friday, January 1, 1999. Coach Barry Alvarez brought his Wisconsin Badgers, sporting a 10-1 record against the 10-1 UCLA Bruins of Head Coach Bob Toledo. This was a hard-fought, close game, with Wisconsin holding the edge at 24-21 at the half based on three Ron Dayne touchdown runs. UCLA’s highlight TD of the first half had to be the one thrown by wide receiver Freddie Mitchell o Durell Price on a trick play that went 61 yards. After intermission, Dayne pounded in a fourth scoring run to make it a two-score game. UCLA responded with a Jermaine Lewis 10-yard run. to bring the Bruins back within 3 of UW. The final quarter saw Wisconsin Jamar Fletcher's 46-yard pick-six return. The Bruins made it a one-score game once again when Sailer netted a 30-yard field goal with 6:05 remaining, but no further scoring would be made as Wisconsin held on and won 38–31. Dayne was the Game's MVP.

The 86th Rose Bowl game featured the Wisconsin Badgers battling it out on the gridiron with the Stanford Cardinal. Barry Alvarez led his Badgers on a 9-2 campaign winning the Big 10 Conference outright for the first time since 1962. The head coach of the Stanford eleven was Tyrone Willingham, whose charges produced an 8-3 record in the PAC-10. So, it was a BCS Number 7 Ranked Badgers playing the BCS Number 22 Cardinal in this Rose Bowl on January 1, 2000. Both teams' defenses were up to the challenge of playing on the big New Years' Day stage. There was no scoring in the first quarter, but in the second stanza, Cardinal place kicker Mike Biselli nailed a 28-yard field goal to put Stanford up 3–0.  That icebreaker awoke Wisconsin from scoreless slumber when their kicker, Vitaly Pisetsky, knocked a 31-yard field goal between the uprights. Stanford then marched their way down the field, finishing when Kerry Carter dove in the end zone from 1-yard out, but the two-point conversion attempt failed to produce a 9-3 Cardinal lead at the half. The second half was all Wisconsin. The Badger D was stifling, and the run game became productive, especially when runner Ron Dayne 
scored on a 4-yard run. The Badger made it a two-score game in the final quarter as Brooks Bollinger snuck the ball over the goal line with a 1-yard run to provide the scoreboard's final tally of 17–9. The Big Badger back, Ron Dayne, was named the Rose Bowl MVP for the second consecutive year. Dayne was only the third player in Rose Bowl history to have a repeat awarding of that prestige.

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

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of  ROSE BOWL FOOTBALL GAME, VIEW NORTHEAST, 1923 - Rose Bowl Stadium, from Positive Image Photographic Services.

The other photo above is also from Wikimedia Commons and is of the Rose Bowl construction in 1921.After crowds out-grew Pasadena's Tournament Park, architect Myron Hunt drew up plans for the construction of the Rose Bowl stadium in 1920. On January 1, 1923, USC beat Penn State, 14-3, in the first Rose Bowl game. The stadium was enlarged several times, with the south end completed in 1928, taken by an unknown.