Ranking the 30 Greatest National Championship Games
By Zach Bigalke
2. 1963 Rose Bowl
#1 USC d. #2 Wisconsin 42-37
BEFORE THE GAME
Until the 1963 Rose Bowl, the two teams that finished the regular season ranked first and second in the AP poll had never met one another in a postseason bowl game. Back then polls still ended with the regular season, and thus this game was not officially a national championship game. The oldest bowl game on the calendar was celebrating its 60th season that year, and it managed to land the premier matchup of the 1962-1963 postseason.
USC was the top-ranked team in the country. The Trojans had won the AAWU, which had formed a few years earlier in the wake of the Pacific Coast Conference’s dissolution. Without either Oregon school it was essentially the Pac-6. In John McKay’s third season, USC ran the table and was one of just three teams to go undefeated and untied throughout 1962. During the regular season they pitched three shutouts and held opponents to an average of 5.5 yards per game.
It wasn’t a guarantee that their opponent, Wisconsin, would be rated second in the polls. The Badgers had lost once in Big Ten play, 14-7 at Ohio State, but the Buckeyes would also end the year 13th in the coaches poll (the AP poll only released a top 10 at that time). Wisconsin boasted the highest-powered offense in the country, averaging more than 30 points per game even before the shootout at the Rose Bowl. The Badgers beat out 9-0 SEC champion Ole Miss and 9-0-1 SWC champ Texas for the second spot in both polls. Thus the first 1-vs.-2 matchup was arranged in a bowl game.
THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
The showdown certainly lived up to its hype as a Game of the Century. USC scored first on a 13-yard pass from Pete Beathard to Ron Butcher. Wisconsin tied things up in the first quarter thanks to a plunge over the line by fullback Ralph Kurek, but the Trojans added two more touchdowns before halftime and scored right away in the third quarter to build a 28-7 lead. By early in the fourth quarter, USC had a 42-14 lead and looked like a definitive #1 team.
Then Ron Vander Kelen took over the game. The Wisconsin quarterback led three touchdown drives and USC gifted two more points on a bad snap that resulted in a safety as the Badgers furiously fought for a comeback. Vander Kelen finished the game with a then-record 33-of-48 performance for 401 yards and two scores through the air along with a 17-yard rushing touchdown in the third quarter, but he also threw three interceptions in the narrow loss.
Wisconsin set a Rose Bowl record with 32 first downs, as one of the greatest Rose Bowls in history ended in a five-point Trojan victory. Modern offensive numbers obscure just how stunning and ahead of its time this game was, and help to explain why it rates just ahead of the USC/Texas Rose Bowl on this list of championship games.