Ohio State and Southern California have a long and colorful history in bowl games. For fans of a certain age, the scarlet and gray clashing with the cardinal and gold was a mainstay of New Year’s Days in Pasadena.
The Buckeyes and Trojans will renew their series this season, but the setting will be different.
The Cotton Bowl announced that #5 OSU and #8 USC will face off at Dallas Cowboys Stadium on December 29. It kicks off at 8:30 pm on ESPN.
It will be Ohio State’s second appearance in the Cotton Bowl, following a 28-12 win in the 1987 game. The Buckeyes also played at Cowboys Stadium when they won the 2014 National Championship against Oregon, and will return there next fall for a neutral-site game against TCU.
The game pits the two Power Five conference champions who finished the year with 11-2 records, but were left out of the playoff field. USC claimed the Pac-12 title Friday night in Santa Clara with a 31-28 win over Stanford. The Buckeyes captured the Big Ten title Saturday night in Indianapolis with a 27-21 victory over previously unbeaten Wisconsin.
The Trojans hold a 13-9-1 record in the series, and have won the last seven matchups with the Buckeyes. OSU’s last win against USC came in the 1974 Rose Bowl, after the Big Ten’s tie-breaker vote sent the Buckeyes to Pasadena over Michigan.
Since then, USC crushed unbeaten Ohio State’s national title hopes with one-point wins in the 1975 and 1980 Rose Bowls, won the 1985 Rose Bowl, and swept home-and-home series in 1989-1990 and 2008-2009.
A few unusual stats about the series:
- USC has more wins (13) against Ohio State in program history than long-time Big Ten members Indiana (9) or Minnesota (7).
- With a win in the Cotton Bowl, they would match Penn State’s all-time win total against the Buckeyes (14).
- Despite playing only twice, the Trojans have more wins over OSU in the past 14 years (2) than Michigan does (1).
- This will be the eighth neutral site game between the Buckeyes and Trojans, the most of any OSU opponent. Alabama is second with four.