106th Rose Bowl: By the Numbers
Football is a game of numbers. Ten yards for a first down. Three points for a field goal. Six points for a touchdown. And two points – for some reason – for a safety.
There have been 105 Rose Bowl games, and that volume makes it mighty difficult for players to post record-breaking numbers. But in their team’s nine Rose Bowl appearances, Wisconsin players have done just that. Ron Dayne combined for 30 points in the 1999 and 2000 games – the most in Rose Bowl history. A decade later, Montee Ball became the only player to score a touchdown in three consecutive Rose Bowls.
The 106th Rose Bowl matchup features plenty of fun numbers and playful parallels. It’s Wisconsin versus Oregon – Bucky versus a Ducky, if you will. The game is a rematch of the 2012 Rose Bowl, where the teams combined for 83 points, breaking a then-record. Russell Wilson was Wisconsin’s star quarterback at the time – a position he now holds for a certain NFL team in the Pacific Northwest.
Did you know there’s an Oregon in Wisconsin? The Dane County village has an estimated 10,520 residents. It would take 400 villages of Oregon to match the state of Oregon’s population. There’s also a city of Milwaukie in Oregon, with some 21,000 residents. It would take nearly 30 cities of Milwaukie to fill Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Badger state’s largest city.
The year 1846 saw both the chartering of Madison, Wisconsin, and the founding of Eugene, home of the University of Oregon. Eugene resides in Lane County; Madison resides in Dane County. And until 1916, the University of Oregon appropriated the tune of “On, Wisconsin!” for its fight song.
Need more trivia to impress your friends at your Rose Bowl watch party? Check out the numbers below.
0Points scored by the Badgers in their first Rose Bowl appearance in 1953
1Rose Bowl game played in Durham, North Carolina, on Jan. 1, 1942, after fears of a Japanese attack on the west coast
2Consecutive Rose Bowl wins by the Badgers (1999 and 2000) – the only Big Ten team to achieve that milestone
3The betting line, favoring Wisconsin (Caesars Sportsbook, Dec. 19)
6Oregon’s College Football Playoff ranking
7Rose Bowl appearances under Barry Alvarez, and the number of years since the Badgers’ last appearance (14–20 vs. Stanford in 2013)
8Wisconsin’s College Football Playoff ranking
10Time of the New Year’s toast for Badgers fans in Pasadena
20Number of years since the Badgers’ last Rose Bowl victory (17–9 over Stanford in 2000)
24University of Oregon faculty members with UW–Madison degrees
26Years since the Badgers’ first Rose Bowl win (21–16 vs. UCLA in 1994)
30Total points scored by Ron Dayne in Rose Bowl appearances (a record)
31Bowl appearances by the Badgers
23Points scored by the Badgers in the fourth quarter of the 1963 Rose Bowl
28Miles of lumber used to make the Rose Bowl’s original bench seats
44Floats to appear in the 2020 Rose Parade
51.5The over/under betting line for total scoring (Caesars Sportsbook, Dec. 19)
58 °FHigh temperature forecast in Pasadena during the Rose Bowl game (The Weather Channel, Dec. 19)
83Points scored by Wisconsin and Oregon in their first Rose Bowl matchup in 2012
96Rose Bowl games played in Rose Bowl Stadium, built in 1922
100Varieties of rose bushes outside the Rose Bowl Stadium, just under the count in the UW Arboretum’s Longenecker Gardens
101UW alumni living in West Hollywood
131Rose Parades (counting 2020)
$160Standard Rose Bowl ticket price
192Total points scored by the Badgers in Rose Bowl appearances
213UW alumni living in the city of Pasadena
922UW freshman applicants from Los Angeles County in 2019
1,787UW alumni living in Los Angeles
2,100Miles separating Madison and Eugene
2,430Circumference in feet of the Rose Bowl Stadium’s outer rim
$2,850 The highest resale ticket price listed on StubHub (Dec. 19)
3,034UW freshman applicants from California in 2019
5,816UW alumni living in the Los Angeles area
10,000University of Oregon alumni living in Southern California – the largest contingent of alumni outside of Oregon
22,000Number of Rose Bowl tickets allocated to UW–Madison for public sale
92,542Rose Bowl Stadium capacity, making it the 15th-largest stadium in the world and big enough to hold the entire student bodies of UW–Madison (45,317) and the University of Oregon (22,615)
84MNumber of gallons of water it would take to fill the Rose Bowl Stadium – less than 6% of all the water in Lake Wingra, Madison’s smallest lake. The stadium could be filled in less than six minutes by the outflow of Oregon’s Willamette River.