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

1. Two of the nation’s top coaches finally meet for the first time

Over the past decade, Chris Petersen and Urban Meyer have consistently rated as two of the top coaches in the entire country. In 17 seasons and at four schools since 2001, Meyer has piled up a 186-32 record. Petersen, in his eight seasons at Boise State and five in Seattle, has compiled a 139-32 record.

Amazingly, with 389 combined games coached between the two men, Meyer and Petersen have never faced off against one another on the gridiron. By the time Petersen took over for Dan Hawkins in 2006 and immediately led the Broncos on their fairy-tale trip to the Fiesta Bowl and the overtime win over Oklahoma, Meyer had parlayed his BCS Buster magic at Utah into a bigger post at Florida.

Once in the SEC, Meyer’s only trip west of Arkansas was for the 2006 BCS championship at the Fiesta Bowl. That trend has largely continued except for a few select non-conference games since moving on to Ohio State. Now that one is in the Big Ten and the other in the Pac-12, though, fate finally intervened to allow two of the game’s 21st-century masterminds to finally pit their respective teams against one another on the sport’s grandest stage.