Ohio State is headed to the Rose Bowl.
With its 42-17 first-round win over Tennessee on Saturday night, the Buckeyes will return to Pasadena for a grudge match with Oregon, one of the two teams that defeated Ohio State during the regular season, in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
The Rose Bowl will be played in its traditional 5 p.m. ET time slot on New Year’s Day and will be televised by ESPN.
It will be Ohio State’s 17th all-time appearance in the Rose Bowl and its first since the 2021 season, when it earned a 48-45 win over Utah in a non-playoff game. Ohio State has won its last four Rose Bowl appearances and has a 9-7 all-time record in Pasadena.
Oregon – which will be making its ninth appearance in the Rose Bowl – earned the first berth in the game by winning the Big Ten championship. Ohio State heads to the Rose Bowl for its CFP quarterfinal because of its position in the bracket as the No. 8 seed; the Ducks are the No. 1 seed in the CFP as the only remaining unbeaten team in college football.
In addition to trying to keep its national championship hopes alive, Ohio State will be looking for revenge after the Ducks handed the Buckeyes a 32-31 defeat at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium on Oct. 12. It’s the first time the Buckeyes will play the same team twice in the same year since 2019 when Ohio State earned a 34-21 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game after defeating the Badgers 38-7 in the regular season.
Ohio State was a 1.5-point betting favorite on FanDuel to beat Oregon as of late Saturday night.
The Ohio State vs. Oregon quarterfinal matchup guarantees that the Big Ten will have at least one team in the CFP semifinals. The Big Ten could have two semifinalists if No. 6 seed Penn State, which earned a 38-10 win over SMU in its first-round game on Saturday, defeats No. 3 seed Boise State in its quarterfinal game at the Fiesta Bowl.
