The 2025 Rose Bowl schedule takes place on January 1st, 2025. The game is one of the 2024-25 College Football Playoff quarterfinal matchups in the expanded 12 team format this postseason. We have the schedule and information on the Rose Bowl experience for you here. Everyone is excited to see the expansion of the college football postseason this year. The game will follow the 136th Rose Parade again this year. It is one of the most awesome experiences in college football in my opinion if you have not been before.
How Does the 2024-25 College Football Playoff Work?
The 2024-25 College Football playoff consists of 12 teams this year. These will be made up of five major conference champions plus the highest ranked other teams in college football (this was 6 and 6 before the PAC-12 got reduced to two teams). The selection committee will use the same ranking systems in the past. The four highest-ranked conference champions enjoy a first round bye in the playoff.
The other eight teams face-off in an opening round where the highest ranked team is the host. The winners move on to play the higher seeds in the quarterfinals. The Rose Bowl along with the Peach, Fiesta, and Sugar Bowls are quarterfinal hosts. The Orange and Cotton Bowls host the semifinal games this year. The Rose Bowl will also be a quarterfinal site for the 2025-26 college football playoff.
2025 Rose Bowl Schedule
Here’s the 2025 Rose Bowl schedule. Please note that if you are attending the 2025 Rose Parade, it is recommended that you are seated/at the spot you’re going to watch the parade by 6:30 AM. All times listed are in local time (Pacific Time). If the schedule changes as we trend closer to the game, we will let you know. We won’t know which team is assigned as the higher seed to the game until the end of the college football regular season.
4:00 AM – Stadium parking lot opens
9:00 AM – Rose Bowl Game FanFest
11:30 AM – Gates to the stadium open
1:00 PM – Pregame activities begin
2:00 PM – Kickoff
*All times noted in PST
Rose Bowl History (Since the College Football Playoff)
So, with how the 2024-25 college football playoff is setup, there will be one of the top four ranked teams assigned to the game. If there is a West Coast-based team in this mix, we can expect they will likely get the game to maximize regional attendance (not set in stone though).More recently, the Rose Bowl has hosted four College Football Playoff semifinal games. Last year, fans got to enjoy #1 Michigan defeat #4 Alabama in overtime (27-20). The first time the Rose Bowl hosted the semifinal game was in 2015. In that game, #2 Oregon beat #3 Florida State (59-20) in the 101st Rose Bowl Game.
As a quarterfinal, the Rose Bowl Game will be assigned to one of the top four teams in the country to play in Pasadena. That team is likely to have a regional or traditional tie to the Rose Bowl Game. The opponent will be determined by that first-round campus game in mid-December.
Rose Bowl History (Before the Playoff)
So, the Rose Bowl Game has been around for what feels like forever. It’s Knick name is “The Grandaddy of Them All.” It was the first bowl game (or postseason) for football played. The first edition was in 1902 and it has been played every year since 1916.
Before the college playoff, the Rose Bowl saw matchups between the Pac-12 and Big Ten. The bowl has been part of the New Year’s Six Bowls in the college football playoff since 2015. If there is a year where the bowl is not used for these games, it would revert to it’s previous Pac-12 vs Big Ten matchup. We don’t know how this would work after 2026 if the Pac-12 (now 2) dissolves.
What Stadium is the Rose Bowl Played in?
The Rose Bowl is an outdoor stadium located in Pasadena, California. It hosts the bowl game by the same name every year. The facility first opened in 1922 and is the 10th largest NCAA stadium (16th largest in the world). Located 10 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, the Rose Bowl serves as the home field of the UCLA Bruins during the regular season. The field is beside the Brookside Golf and country Club and is owned by the city of Pasadena.
