Rose Bowl Parity

With the advent of the BCS series, the old system of conference champions going to specific bowl games has somewhat fell to the wayside. For 52 years, from 1946 to 1997, the Rose Bowl pitted the champion of the Big Ten versus the champion of the Pac Ten. Early on, the Big Ten seemed to dominate, but in the 1970’s and 80’s it was the Pac Ten’s turn. After the 1997 season was over the Rose Bowl became part of the BCS system and ceased to be a game fought only by those two conferences. So, after 52 years who was the better conference? Amazingly, each conference won 26 times.