Rose Bowl Friday gets to look at a Monday game this time around, thanks to that old-time rule about no bowl games on Sunday—which had nothing to do with the NFL at the time. The game in Pasadena featured Stanford University, making its fourth appearance in the Granddaddy of Them All … still the only bowl game that was being held at the time. Stanford had failed to win its first three attempts in the Rose game.

The opponent from the East was Pittsburgh, the mighty Panthers who brought an 8-0-1 record to the Best Coast for this matchup against 7-2-1 Stanford. Pittsburgh should have been a big favorite here, with advantages in SRS (No. 6 to No. 38) and SOS (39th to 46th) numbers. Yet a scoreless first half once again suggested that the long travel grind from the other side of the country was taking its toll on those teams.

However, the Panthers finally broke through to score a touchdown in the third quarter, although they missed the extra point. This opened the door for Stanford to push through to its first bowl-game victory with a rushing touchdown and a successful extra point. A scoreless fourth quarter sealed the deal for the West Coast team’s win by a 7-6 score. Pittsburgh had given up just 20 points all season prior to this game.

On the contrary, Stanford had played five games against small-school competition and still gave up 44 points alone to those squads—losing to both St. Mary’s College and Santa Clara, local private schools of religious affiliation. It makes us wonder today why Stanford was even chose for this matchup, although perhaps coming off the strength of its tie versus Alabama the year before, maybe that was the reason.

This game had proven so popular that the 1920s saw the Rose Bowl itself increase its seating capacity to 76,000 seats, which seems incredible for the time period. Stanford’s 4-0-1 record in the Pacific Coast Conference would have drawn the attention of the West Coast fans who wanted to see the action live; however, only about 67,500 fans attended this specific game, even though the weather was near perfect.