USC made a special kind of history at the Rose Bowl in 1960s

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One of the great moments in any college football season is when No. 1 faces No. 2. These matchups occur every now and then but are not guaranteed to happen every year. USC football made history at the 1963 Rose Bowl on a number of levels. The Trojans won the national championship with their 42-37 win over the Wisconsin Badgers, but they made a different kind of history as well. ESPN's Bill Connelly explained:

"Jan. 1, 1963: No. 1 USC 42, No. 2 Wisconsin 37. Bowls became massive events in the mid-1900s — especially the Rose Bowl — but the AP poll was nearly 30 years old when a bowl finally produced a No. 1-vs.-No. 2 matchup. And it was a doozy. John McKay's unbeaten, national champion Trojans raced to a 42-14 lead early in the fourth quarter, but Wisconsin nearly pulled off an all-time comeback, scoring 23 late points."

Stop and realize that it took until 1963 (the 1962 season) for college football to produce a 1-versus-2 bowl game. There were only a handful of bowls back then, the traditional New Year's Day games plus the Sun Bowl and, as the 1960s arrived, a few other games such as the Gator and Liberty Bowls. Even though the lineup of bowls was small, it's still wild that it took more than a quarter of a century for the bowls to create a 1-2 clash. The first Associated Press Poll was in 1936.

That 1963 Rose Bowl involving USC was an epic game, and it crowned the Trojans as champions. Yet, the history made by that game transcended the Men of Troy. It's one of the more improbable realities of a sport built on improbable occurrences.

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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC made a special kind of history at the Rose Bowl in 1960s

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