While most of us old timers treasure the 45-9 blasting of #4 Illinois in the 1984 Rose Bowl, the win over USC that got us there has been largely forgotten. Who knew the game between the 5-4-1 Bruins and the 4-5-1 Trojans would be so consequential? UCLA was still mathematically in the Rose Bowl race, but Washington only needed a win over lowly Washington State to punch their ticket. And the Bruins started out playing like they weren’t thinking Rose Bowl and trailed USC 10-6 at halftime. Then came the announcement that WSU had upset the Huskies in Seattle and UCLA came out on fire, scoring three fairly quick 3rd quarter TDs on the way to a 27-17 over Sean Salisbury and Ted Tollner.
Anyway I had misplaced my tape of the game but I just found it. Given the flow of the game I only digitized the second half and put it on YouTube. I also included bonus footage at the end, of the Channel 2, 4 and 7 news coverage of the game with all your favorite sports and news anchors of the day.