10 Interesting Numbers And Notes To Know About The 2025 Rose Bowl

The matchup with No. 1 Oregon in the 2025 Rose Bowl will be the fourth time the Buckeyes have faced an opponent this season who was ranked in the top-5 in the nation at the time of the game. The Ducks were No. 3 when the Buckeyes lost 32-31 at Autzen Stadium on October 12. Penn State was No. 3 when Ohio State beat them in Beaver Stadium on November 2, and Indiana was ranked No. 5 when OSU beat them on November 23. If the Buckeyes continue to win, they could conceivably finish the season with six games against teams ranked in the top 5 which sounds mathematically implausible, and which would also give them by far the greatest resume of any team in college football history.

This will be the fifth team to face the Buckeyes while ranked in the top-10 nationally at the time of the game. In addition to the four listed above, Tennessee was No. 7 when they came to Columbus for the first round of the College Football Playoff.

Ohio State and Alabama are tied with the fewest losses in the College Football Playoff era (2014-present). Both teams have lost exactly 17 games over those 11 seasons. The Crimson Tide is 136-17 and the Buckeyes are 127-17.

The Buckeyes are 5-10 all-time against teams ranked No. 1. They have lost their last two meetings with the top-ranked team (vs. Georgia in the 2022 Peach Bowl, and Alabama in the national championship game at the end of the 2020 season). Their last win over a top-ranked team came 10 years to the day before this year’s Rose Bowl, in the Sugar Bowl over Alabama on New Year’s Day 2015. They lost their only previous Rose Bowl game against a top-ranked team, 42-17 to USC in the 1973 Rose Bowl.

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day is the only active coach to have led his team to the College Football Playoff four times since the start of the 2019 season. The Buckeyes made the CFP in 2019, 2020, 2022, and now in 2024.

Ohio State has the longest streak of 11-plus win seasons in the nation (excluding the abbreviated 2020 season), with 11 straight, going back to the 2012 season. Georgia has the second-longest streak at seven seasons.

The Buckeyes have a chance to get their bowl record back to .500 with a win over the Ducks. Officially, their record in bowl games sits at 25-26 entering the game. First-round College Football Playoff games do not count in that bowl record, nor do national championship games that are played outside of the traditional bowl structure.

There are three notable ties between the coaching staffs. Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly served as Oregon’s head coach from 2009-2012, putting up a 46-7 record and a 33-3 mark in Pac-12 play. Ohio State running backs coach Carlos Locklyn served in the same position at Oregon for the previous two seasons. Oregon’s tight ends coach, Drew Mehringer, was a graduate assistant under Urban Meyer from 2012-2013.

This will only be the third time in the modern history of Ohio State football (since 1951) that they will face a team twice in one season. They played UCLA in the LA Coliseum in the 1975 regular season, winning 41-20, before losing to the Bruins in the Rose Bowl at the end of the season, 23-10. They beat Wisconsin 38-7 in Columbus during the 2019 regular season, and then beat the Badgers in the Big Ten Championship Game, 34-21. Prior to that, the Buckeyes played a few in-state opponents multiple times. They went 2-0-1 against Ohio Medical in 1896, winning the first game, 24-0, playing to a scoreless tie in the second matchup, and winning the third, 12-0. The last team to beat the Buckeyes twice in one season was Wittenberg, which won 6-0 and 18-6 during the 1894 season.

Oregon’s Tez Johnson scored on a 48-yard touchdown reception with 1:17 left in the second quarter of the Ducks’ 32-31 win over Ohio State on October 12. That remains the last time the Buckeye defense allowed a passing touchdown this season.

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