Want a great sports trivia question with a connection to USC, UCLA, Michigan and Ohio State? Here you go: Who are the only two football coaches to win both the Rose Bowl and the Super Bowl?
Before we give you the answer, we can tell you that the Rose Bowl half of this achievement flows from games which involve the old and new members of the Big Ten: USC and UCLA as the new arrivals, Michigan and Ohio State as the old-timers.
Now, here’s the answer: Pete Carroll and Dick Vermeil. They are the only two coaches to win both the Rose Bowl and the Super Bowl.
USC fans know that Carroll won a bunch of Rose Bowls at USC, but his first one was a win over Michigan in 2004. He then won Super Bowl XLVIII with the Seattle Seahawks in February of 2014 over the Denver Broncos.
Vermeil might be the less-known part of this answer. A lot of people know he won Super Bowl XXXIV with the St. Louis Rams over the Tennessee Titans. That was the Super Bowl in which the Rams’ Mike Jones tackled the Titans’ Kevin Dyson on the 1-yard line as time expired.
Vermeil’s Rose Bowl win is something a lot fewer people know about. Vermeil coached at UCLA for only two seasons, but in 1975, he led the Bruins to the Rose Bowl, where they upset Woody Hayes and Ohio State, led by two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin.
A USC-Michigan Rose Bowl and a UCLA-Ohio State Rose Bowl will no longer exist now that the four teams will play each other in future Big Ten regular seasons. When the Rose Bowl was still Big Ten versus Pac-8 or Pac-10, however, Pete Carroll and Dick Vermeil made football history in Los Angeles.
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