Ohio State Football: 3 reasons to watch the Rose Bowl vs. Washington

After hosting the College Football Playoff semifinal last year, the Rose Bowl returns to traditional Big Ten vs. Pac-12 format headlined by Ohio State football.

Nestled in the Arroyo Seco, in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena is college football’s most legendary venue. Site of the first college football bowl game in the history of the sport, the “Granddaddy of them all” will host its 105th edition on New Year’s Day 2019.

Long the exclusive destination for the champions of the Big Ten and the various iterations of the Pacific Coast Conference, the Rose Bowl was the last holdout in the late 1990s when the effort to create a unified postseason structure for crowning a national champion was beginning to formulate. Since 1998, when the game finally joined the Bowl Championship Series, the Rose Bowl has failed to feature a Pac-10/12 versus Big Ten matchup in seven of the past 20 seasons.

The historic game hosted one of the College Football Playoff semifinals last year, resulting in a Georgia-Oklahoma showdown that completely divorced the game from its traditional partners. 2018 marks a reunion, as the game gets the chance to host Pac-12 champion Washington against an Ohio State team that was hoping to reach the Playoff this year as the Big Ten champ.

The legendary venue and the history of the Rose Bowl are reasons themselves that make it worth tuning in to this contest. But there are plenty of compelling reasons within the specific matchup that make this a must-see event. Here are three of the biggest reasons why you won’t want to miss the Rose Bowl this year.