All-time Pac-12 football moments: One of the first was the 1925 Rose Bowl

On a list of the 100 most significant CFB games of all time, the 1925 Rose Bowl — Stanford vs @IrishWireND — has to be included.

When you go deep into the history of the Pac-12 Conference and reflect on what it gave to college football, one of the earliest big moments has to be the 1925 Rose Bowl.

It’s true that the Pacific Coast Conference team in that game, Stanford, lost. Yet, the 1925 Granddaddy remains — and will always be — one of the most celebrated and transformative college football games ever played. It wasn’t a great game. Notre Dame beat Stanford, 27-10. It was, however, enormously significant.

Fighting Irish Wire notes how this game cemented the 1924 Notre Dame team as one of the best ever:

“Notre Dame won the Rose Bowl against Stanford on Jan. 1, 1925 with the famous Four Horseman backfield of Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley and Elmer Layden and head coach Knute Rockne. The fearsome backfield combo led the Irish to a 10-0 season and the Rose Bowl victory would be the last time Notre Dame appeared in a bowl game for over 40 seasons.”

If Notre Dame lost this game, the Four Horseman mythology created by legendary college football writer Grantland Rice wouldn’t have endured nearly to the same extent it did.

Notre Dame’s Rose Bowl trip — the only time the Irish have ever played this game in Pasadena (they played Alabama in the 2020 Rose Bowl in Arlington, Texas, due to the pandemic) — established the Irish as a national brand. This game helped set up the long-running matchups Notre Dame has with both Stanford and USC.

This game, in addition to elevating the Four Horsemen to an exalted place, also had the enormous historical weight of including two of the sport’s most iconic coaches. Notre Dame was led by the unforgettable Knute Rockne. Stanford was coached by a man you might have heard of: Glenn “Pop” Warner. Two men with such considerable reach into the sport of football dueled in a Rose Bowl. This game had so much history and impact that we’re still talking about it nearly 100 years later.

Stanford lost, but the Pac-12 witnessed one of its biggest early moments as a conference.

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