FanHouse is counting down the 10 best, 10 worst, and 10 weirdest moments in Big Ten football history.
There are a lot of firsts and onlys on this list, but this one surprised even me. Only one Big Ten team has ever won back-to-back Rose Bowls, and it didn't happen way back in the 1950s. In fact, it happened less than ten years ago. When the Wisconsin Badgers won in 1999 and 2000, they became the first and so far only Big Ten team to do so.
Now, it's important to remember that prior to the early 1970s the Big Ten had a rule forbidding any team from going to the Rose Bowl in two consecutive seasons. Once that rule was lifted, Ohio State went to Pasadena four straight years (1973 through 1976) but only won once, in 1974. Not to be outdone, Michigan then went to, and lost, three straight Rose Bowls themselves. Throughout the 1980s no Big Ten team would make consecutive West Coast swings. Michigan split their 1993 and 1994 Rose Bowls, but it looked as if no Big Ten team would ever win the thing in back-to-back years
But they didn't count on ... one man.
That one man would be Ron Dayne, the human bowling ball who rolled over the college football world in the late 1990s. Behind Dayne, Wisconsin won the Big Ten in 1998, sending Barry Alvarez back to Pasadena for the first time in five years. The Badgers faced UCLA in a game featuring more than 1,000 yards of combined offense. Dayne scored four touchdowns and the Badgers wound up winning 38-31.
The following season the Badgers earned their way back, coming in ranked fourth nationally (but only seventh in the BCS). Their opponent was a lightly-regarded Stanford team ranked 22nd by the AP and completely unranked by the coaches. The Cardinal, under Ty Willingham, proved to have more fight than anyone anticipated. The 2000 Rose Bowl was a tight defensive struggle, but the Badgers ultimately prevailed, 17-9.
Ron Dayne was named Player of the Game in both years, a nice honor to add to his 1999 Heisman Trophy. Barry Alvarez had already achieved hero status in Wisconsin just by reviving the moribund Badger program, but the back-to-back Rose Bowl wins made him even more of a legend. And now, with the Rose Bowl more or less thoroughly infiltrated by the BCS, who knows if any Big Ten team will ever duplicate the Badgers' feat?
Oh, and just for the record, lest you think that the reason this has only happened once is that the Big Ten is hopelessly weak, the all-time tally in the Rose Bowl is Pac 10 32, Big Ten 30 in head-to-head matchups. In the past twenty years, the Big Ten actually leads, 10-7. There's another surprise for you.
