A few seasons after winning the Big Ten and being blocked from playing in the Rose Bowl, the site of the BCS National Championship for the 2005 season, Penn State once again worked its way to the top of the Big Ten and claimed the conference’s spot in the Rose Bowl Game in the 2008 season. It marked Penn State’s first trip to the Rose Bowl since the 1994 season, where the Nittany Lions won their first Rose Bowl against Oregon. This time around, it was a more familiar opponent.
Penn State and USC had their battles over the years but it had been a few years since the Nittany Lions and Trojans squared off. This was the second all-time meeting in the Rose Bowl, with Penn State and USC playing in the 1923 Rose Bowl. USC won that matchup, and the 2009 Rose Bowl would see a similar result.
Penn State was led by quarterback Daryll Clark, Derrick Williams, and Deon Butler on offense and A.J. Wallace and Lydell Sargeant on defense, which was missing Sean Lee to a season-ending injury suffered in the spring. And as good as Penn State was as a team, they were just running up a juggernaut in USC.
For USC, playing in the Rose Bowl was a regular routine. The Trojans had won the last two Rose Bowls and this was the fourth straight appearance in the game. The lone loss just so happened to be that BCS national championship game against Texas that sent Penn State to the Orange Bowl in the 2005 season. USC had just one loss suffered in the 2008 season, which was ironically against the same Oregon State team that Penn State handled earlier in the season. But that one loss was enough to knock USC down the rankings enough to make it difficult to work back into the national title conversation.
USC quarterback Mark Sanchez capped his college career with 413 passing yards and four touchdowns in USC’s 35-28 victory over Penn State. After the game was tied at 7-7 after the first quarter, USC blew away Penn State in the second half with a 24-point outburst in the second quarter. Penn State put together some drives in the second half but not quickly enough to dig out of the big halftime hole.
Here is a look back at some of the photos from the 2009 Rose Bowl Game between Penn State and USC.