USC’s greatest football moments have occurred in the Rose Bowl Game. The Trojans battled Michigan and Ohio State many times in the Granddaddy over the years. Some of those games clinched national championships for the Trojans, while others secured top-three or top-five season-ending national rankings in the polls. Even without a national championship, winning a Rose Bowl is a prize unto itself.
Now, with the Trojans moving into the Big Ten, we’re not going to see Rose Bowls between USC and Ohio State or Michigan anymore, barring an unlikely plot twist in which two conference teams somehow meet in the quarterfinals of the 12-team College Football Playoff. That seems next to impossible, but maybe the SEC will have an unexpectedly awful year and the Big Ten will put five teams in. Who knows?
You get the point, though: The era of the classic Big Ten versus Pac-12 Rose Bowl is over. Let’s look back on USC’s Rose Bowls against Michigan. This is the most-played Rose Bowl matchup, with one more meeting than USC-Ohio State: