The 2007 Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi was a college football

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...

played on January 1, 2007 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. It was the 93rd Rose Bowl Game and part of the 2006–2007 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) at the conclusion of the

2006 NCAA Division I FBS football season The 2006 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the highest level of college football competition in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The regular season began on August 31, 2006 and ended on ...

. In the game, the University of Southern California Trojans, champions of the Pacific-10 Conference, defeated the

University of Michigan Wolverines The Michigan Wolverines comprise 29 varsity sports teams at the University of Michigan. These teams compete in the NCAA's Division I and in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except women's water polo, which competes in the NCAA inter-divisio ...

, second-place finishers in the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

, 32–18. USC wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett and USC outside linebacker

Brian Cushing Brian Patrick Cushing (born January 24, 1987) is a former American football linebacker. He played college football at USC, and was drafted by the Houston Texans in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft and played his entire 9-year career for the ...

were named the Rose Bowl Players of the Game.2008 Rose Bowl Program
,

2008 Rose Bowl The 2008 Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi, the 94th Rose Bowl Game, played on January 1, 2008 at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California, was a college football bowl game. The contest was televised on ABC, the 20th straight year the network ...

. Accessed January 26, 2008. Historically, the Rose Bowl has pitted the champions the Big Ten and Pac-10. What made the 2007 Rose Bowl a not-so-traditional matchup is that Michigan entered as the runner-up of the Big Ten. The Big Ten champions,

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

, were ranked #1 and instead participated in the

2007 BCS National Championship Game The 2007 Tostitos BCS National Championship Game was an American football game played at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on January 8, 2007, and featured the top-ranked Big Ten champion Ohio State Buckeyes against the 2nd-r ...

. Michigan won their first 11 games in 2006, but lost their last regular season game to the undefeated Buckeyes in Columbus, 42–39.

Pre-game

A moment of silence prior to the

national anthem A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and Europea ...

was held in memory of former Michigan

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, 38th President of the United States, and 1978

Tournament of Roses The Rose Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses Parade (or simply the Tournament of Roses), is an annual parade held mostly along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, Pasadena, California, United States, on New Year's Day (or on Mon ...

Grand Marshal Gerald Ford, who died six days earlier. George Lucas, Southern California alum, the creator of the '' Star Wars'' series of films, and 2007 Tournament of Roses

Grand Marshal Grand marshal is a ceremonial, military, or political office of very high rank. The term has its origins with the word "marshal" with the first usage of the term "grand marshal" as a ceremonial title for certain religious orders. The following ...

, flipped the coin. The coin used featured Southern California's logo on one on side and Michigan's logo on the other. Neither team called a side as the team's logo that landed up won the coin toss. Southern California deferred after winning the coin toss, and Michigan elected to receive the ball on the kickoff. The game officially started at 2:00 pm PST ( UTC−8).

Scoring summary

Game notes

Many times the participants of the Rose Bowl game have been the winners of the respective

UCLA–USC rivalry The UCLA–USC rivalry is the American collegiate athletics rivalry between the UCLA Bruins sports teams of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and USC Trojans teams of the University of Southern California (USC). Both universit ...

and Michigan-Ohio State rivalry games, although there have been instances where the loser of the rivalry game still won the conference championship. In the 2007 Rose Bowl game, the participants ''both'' were the losers of those games, and Michigan was an at-large BCS participant with a second place Big Ten finish.

References

External links

Summary at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History

ESPN game summary
{{USC Trojans bowl game navbox Rose Bowl Rose Bowl Game Michigan Wolverines football bowl games USC Trojans football bowl games January 2007 sports events in the United States

Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

21st century in Pasadena, California