The 2024-25 college football season features 13 games that are rematches of past Rose Bowl Games. With conference realignment moving Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington to the Big Ten, many of the rematches are now regular season conference games.

Week 10 of the 2024 college football season has a bit of an odd Rose Bowl Game rematch as USC and Washington replay the 1944 edition of The Granddaddy of Them All. It is the only Rose Bowl Game to feature two teams from the same conference as travel restrictions imposed by the war effort limited options to only teams from the West Coast.
 
The Rose Bowl Game was the only conference matchup in 1943 for Washington, who entered the game 4-0 with wins over Whitman College, Spokane Air Command (twice) and the March Field Flyers. Due to the shortened schedule, the Huskies most recent game prior to the Rose Bowl Game was on October 30. In the time between games, Washington lost a dozen players to military duty, including their top two backs, making their team on New Year's Day vastly different than the team that won their four games earlier in the year. 

USC was 7-2 entering the Rose Bowl Game and took exception to being nearly two touchdown underdogs to the Huskies. That showed in the final score as USC won the game, 29-0.

The game's momentum shifted late in the second quarter when quarterback Jim Hardy took the field. Typically a starter, Hardy had been benched for the first quarter, which coach Jeff Cravath said was to give both of them a chance to read the game from the sidelines. As Hardy entered, USC's offense ignited. Starting at their own 28-yard line, Hardy completed three key passes that brought them to Washington's 12-yard line. On a fourth-and-nine, Hardy threw a clutch pass to George Callanan, who scored and put USC up 7–0 at halftime.

In the third quarter, the Hardy-Callanan duo once again drove the offense forward. After a 29-yard lateral from Hardy to Callanan, the Trojans scored another touchdown on a 10-yard pass. USC then capitalized with touchdown passes from Hardy to Gordon Gray and from Ainslie Bell to Gray, adding a safety from Harry Planck's blocked kick to round off the scoring.

While Hardy, Callanan, and Gray's performances dazzled, USC's offensive line were the unsung heroes, dismantling Washington's defense at every turn. As Paul Lowry noted, "It was the unsung linemen who turned the Washington machine inside out and balked its thunder." Coach Cravath lauded the team's total effort, summing it up simply: "The entire team was magnificent."