Rose Bowl Friday marches on today with the start of the Roaring ’20s, exemplified by a return to “normalcy” in Pasadena for the Granddaddy of Them All. Now that World War I was over and in the rearview mirror, the game returned to its East-West origins and roots with a matchup between the Harvard Crimson and the Oregon Webfoots. It was a close game with all the scoring in the first half, as Harvard won by a 7-6 score.

This prevented Oregon from becoming the first two-time winner of the game, after the school had won it on the first day of 1917. But the Crimson were a very solid team, having posted an 8-0-1 record against a middling schedule featuring three future Ivy League rivals, as well as Boston College and Virginia. Yes, Harvard also bullied four non-major opponents, giving up just 13 points total in its 9 prior games.

Meanwhile, the Webfoots had faced a different kind of schedule, going 5-1 in the process: they played a local college in their state twice, while also facing conference opponents from Oregon State, Washington, and Washington State. Only the Cougars beat them, coming to Portland and dropping the “hosts” by a 7-0 score. Oregon (38th) probably was not in Harvard’s class (11th), as the SRS rankings for each team emphasize.

Nonetheless, the Crimson fell behind 3-0 in the second quarter before scoring a touchdown to take the lead. The Webfoots tacked on a second field goal, and that was all the scoring for the entire matchup. Strangely, Oregon missed four other field-goal attempts in the game, so the outcome could have been very different. With Harvard scoring its TD on a fake field-goal attempt, it’s even more interesting to ponder the result.

The East-versus-West tradition would continue until the advent of the Bowl Championship Series in the late 1990s, however, even through the challenges of World War II. However, Harvard would never play in another Rose Bowl (this was the Crimson’s only appearance ever, actually), and it would be 38 more seasons before the future Ducks would return to Pasadena themselves. Time is funny that way when it comes to sports.