Rose Bowl Friday always makes us both happy and sad: the former because we grew up with the tradition that was so great in the 1970s and the 1980s; the latter because college football is now just a joke. Anyway, we will continue this miniseries through the 1955 regular season, as we started covering Rose Bowls previously with the 1956 regular season as a part of our Pac-12/B1G MVPs miniseries so long ago. So …

This Granddaddy featured the Southern California Trojans and the Duke Blue Devils, a unique matchup even for the time. This was not the first dance for USC, of course, but it was the debut of Duke in the Rose Bowl; the Blue Devils would only make one more appearance (1941)—and that would be a truly distinct moment in the history of the game. But more on that in three weeks. For now, it was USC versus Duke.

One of these teams came into the game undefeated (9-0), having not given up a single point all season long, despite playing the No. 18 SOS that featured nine major-college teams. Let that sink in for a moment: undefeated and not scored upon against real competition. This team had a 3-0 lead in the Rose Bowl with just a few minutes left in the game … before giving up its only points of the year and losing the game, 7-3.

That team? Duke.

The Trojans came into the game with an 8-2 record—but they didn’t need to travel across the country, and that (once again) could have contributed to fatigue in the end for the Blue Devils. In addition, USC played the No. 1 SOS in the nation, and all ten of its regular-season games also were against legitimate colleges. That could have toughened up the Trojans as well, to the point they did not panic through the matchup.

Game film on YouTube shows the winning play (timestamp 2:07.00), as USC had missed a game-tying field goal attempt on its previous possession. But the Trojans’ passing game enabled them to go back down the field one last time and score with a minute left in the game to escape with the victory. The Blue Devils had been ranked No. 3 in the nation and saw their chances at the mythical national championship evaporate.

Oddly, four teams finished the regular season undefeated, and now that the Rose Bowl had inspired other bowl games around the country, all four unbeaten/united teams played in a postseason contest—two of them against each other. This really was the beginning of the national intrigue for the sport, with the widespread acceptance of bowl games to match up the best teams in the country at the end of the year.

Or, on the first of the New Year, as it were. The Golden Era of college football had begun, basically.