The Rose Bowl is the most classic of the BCS matchups and on Wednesday the 100th running of the game will be going down between Stanford and Michigan State and the game starts up at 5:00 pm ET and will be on TV on ESPN and streaming online from the WatchESPN website and the Spartans will be looking for their first win in the game in Pasadena in years and Stanford will be looking to continue their dominance out of the Pac-12 with head coach Davis Shaw.
Stanford and Michigan State come in with great defensive units and both teams have linebackers in the middle and they will be the main playmakers for each defense. This season Spartans senior linebacker Max Bullough had 76 tackles on the season and nearly 10 tackles for loss and Michigan State comes into the game having won their last nine games, including big wins against Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game, and they also won against Minnesota, Northwestern, Nebraska, Michigan, Illinois, Purdue and Indiana and the last time team lost was against Notre Dame on the road when they were ranked number 22 and the score was 17-3. Stanford comes in after winning over Arizona State, while Michigan State comes in with a win against Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game.
Check here for the Stanford and Michigan State live coverage from the Rose Bowl on ESPN and the game is streaming online as well.
The Big Ten winners rank fourth in the nation in points against with 12 points per game and the rushing attack is gaining nearly 200 yards per contest and now the team has the chance to pull off a big win against Stanford in the Rose Bowl. Stanford finished off their season in the Pac-12 by winning their final three games and two of those came against ranked opponents in the conference championship against Arizona State and in the final regular season game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish when they were ranked.
The team also defeated California and that came after the loss to Southern California in an upset win and the only losses for the team and before that Stanford won three straight games against ranked teams in Oregon at number three, Oregon State at number 25 and UCLA at number nine and that came after the first loss of the season, which was a loss to Utah on the road and now the team is looking to win the Rose Bowl again.
Before the loss to Utah, Stanford was 5-0 and they come into the game ranked 10th in defense with under 20 per game and are 22nd in the nation in rushing with 210 yards per game behind Tyler Gaffney. The team went 11-2 on the season and 7-0 against the top 25 and they are ranked fifth in the BCS and play in Pasadena for the second straight season and on defense, Stanford first-team All-American linebacker Trent Murphy will be the main focus for Michigan State and he could be a force on Wednesday.
