No. 11 Penn State football will face No. 8 Utah in the Rose Bowl, the Nittany Lions learned on Sunday afternoon as the New Years Six bowls and College Football Playoff field were announced. Utah is coming off a 47-24 win over USC in the Pac-12 Championship game and heads into the bowl season with a 10-3 record with losses against Oregon, UCLA and a season opening loss against Florida. Utah beat USC 43-42 earlier in the regular season giving the Utes a sweep against the longtime Pac-12 favorite Trojans.
Prior to Sunday’s announcement, Penn State was reportedly already slated to make the Rose Bowl as the Big Ten’s representative. Per reports, Ohio State — which played in the Rose Bowl last year against Utah — indicated it would not accept a Rose Bowl bid if the Buckeyes did not make the College Football Playoffs, with the program eyeing a chance for a different bowl trip to Miami for the Orange Bowl. Fittingly, USC’s loss to Utah knocked the Trojans out of the playoff field opening the door for Ohio State to make the field, giving the Big Ten two teams in the playoffs for the first time in the four-team playoff format’s history. Michigan is No. 2 and will face No. 3 TCU in the playoffs, while the No. 4 Buckeyes will take on No. 1 Georgia.
The Rose Bowl is scheduled to kick off 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 2, 2023 on ESPN. Ticket information is available on the Penn State Athletics website. Penn State last played in the Rose Bowl to close out the 2016 season, falling in a 52-49 in a thriller against USC. Penn State is 1-3 all-time in the Rose Bowl. The College Football Playoff is set to expand to 12 teams beginning during the 2024-25 season.
“You want to try to go to the biggest games you possibly can go to,” Penn State coach James Franklin said of the current landscape last week following the Nittany Lions’ regular season finale. “…I think it’s still important to go to the biggest and the best games you possibly can in the postseason, whether that is the New Years Six bowl game or whatever.”
