By The Numbers: The Rose Bowl

Under normal circumstances, I don’t write a By the Numbers piece until after a game, but these are not normal circumstances.

Just how often is Ohio State in the second round of the College Football Playoff, playing in the Rose Bowl?

Once.

We have only had one year of this format.

Notwithstanding, this is a big deal, and it got me thinking about some numbers that maybe didn’t fit into any of the pieces that I have written for this week.

With all the changes to college football, be it the movement of conference expansion, the 12-team playoff, NIL, the transfer portal or whatever, we got our traditional Big Ten versus Pac-12 Rose Bowl.

Sort of.

Both teams are part of the Big Ten now, but this is not a league game. This is for the right to exit the Rose Bowl and advance to the Cotton Bowl to take another step towards the first 12-team championship of the college football world.

I have lots of numbers to throw at you and I am not getting paid by the word, so let’s get it started.

.459: Yes, we are starting with a decimal because decimals are numbers too. That is Oregon’s bowl record. We are going to have to start getting better at drawing a line between what is a postseason game (conference championship games and first-round on-campus games) versus bowl games. That is a tally of 17-20 for the Ducks. In comparison, the Buckeyes are .482, a 27-29 mark. In theory, Ohio State could even up its bowl record with wins the next two weeks (Rose and then Cotton), but all eyes are on the Rose Bowl before anyone starts thinking about Dallas and what could be ahead.

4.5: The Buckeyes were a 4.5-point underdog in the 2010 Rose Bowl against the Ducks of Oregon. This game was Terrelle Pryor’s coming out party for the Buckeyes, a party where the music stopped all too suddenly with the 2010 season being the end of the line for Pryor, Jim Tressel and that era of Buckeyes football. The Buckeyes would go on to win that game 26-17, holding the ball for more than 41 minutes of game time. Pryor would throw for 266 yards and two scores while rushing for 72 yards on 20 carries.

6: Okay, bear with me here, there is a lot of moving around. When you compare Ohio State’s top two receivers (Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka) to Oregon’s top two receivers (Tez Johnson, Evan Stewart) there is a six-touchdown advantage for Ohio State when comparing the two. Oregon spreads the ball around a little more than Ohio State does, but the numbers are close when you look at total receptions with Ohio State holding the edge, 128-126. The real difference is when you look at total yardage, Ohio State holds a large margin of 1,861-1,479 yards. Both teams have stellar passing games, and these numbers go a long way in proving that.

9: That is the total number of Rose Bowl wins the Buckeyes have leading up to the 2025 edition of the game. Ohio State has done that in 17 appearances in the game, with this upcoming game marking number 18. If Ohio State is fortunate enough to win the game, the Buckeyes will move into the No. 2 spot in Rose Bowl wins alone, only trailing USC and its 25 Rose Bowl wins. Currently the Buckeyes are tied with Michigan at nine, with Michigan appearing in the game 21 times, winning its last appearance in 2024.

12.8: This is the number of points that Ohio State is allowing in power five games (taking the early OOC games off the table but adding Tennessee). This does include the 32 points given up by Ohio State to Oregon the first time around. But there have been a lot of zeroes along the way as Ohio State has really been one of the best scoring defenses in the nation and not fattening up its numbers on teams outside of the league.

14: Okay, this is another one where you are going to have to follow me to get to the end. We have talked about the importance of a fast start and saw one from the Buckeyes in the Tennessee game, but the Ducks hold a better margin in the first quarter than the Buckeyes, by a total of 14 points (each team has played 10 games of consequence, sorry Boise State, just not going to count you). Ohio State is outscoring opponents by 39 points in the first quarter while the Ducks are jumping on opponents to the tune of 53 points. Ohio State has been a much better 2^nd and 3^rd quarter team overall this year, but it will be imperative for Ohio State not to fall in a hole to start the game. One side note, only one team outscored the Ducks in the first quarter, that was Ohio State, 7-6.

34: Ohio State and Oregon have met three times in the post season, two Rose Bowls (1958, 2010) and the CFP Championship Game. Ohio State holds a 34-point margin over the Ducks over those three games, or something just a little bit over 11 points per game. What happened in 1958 is not going to have any impact on this upcoming game, neither is Oregon’s two-game winning streak over Ohio State or Ohio State winning the previous nine in a row.

35.9: I don’t want to be accused of downplaying the Ducks, so here you go. Oregon is scoring 35.9 points per game versus the Power Five (nine league games and the B1G Champ Game). Ohio State isn’t all that far behind at 31.6 points per game, but this Ducks offense is special and if I really were about writing narratives, this would be the game of the Oregon offense against the Ohio State defense.

1917: Okay, this is a year more than a number, but years are numbers and numbers are years. This is the year of Oregon’s first appearance in the Rose Bowl, and the Ducks would win that game 14-0 over Penn. Oregon would also appear one more time before the Buckeyes made it out west, a 1920 loss to Harvard, 7-6. The Buckeyes would show up the following year and drop a one-sided game to Cal, 28-0. The Buckeyes would have to wait until 1950 to pick up their first Rose Bowl win, a 17-14 win over Cal.

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