The Buckeyes have played six different teams from the Pac-12 (previously the Pac-10 and Pac-8 among other incarnations) in the Rose Bowl through the years but have never played Washington in the New Year’s Day classic. They have played USC, UCLA, Cal, Oregon, Stanford and Arizona in the past and this will be the first chance to play the Huskies on one of the grandest stages of them all.

That does not mean that Ohio State and Washington are unfamiliar foes, at least as the record book stands. These two teams have met 11 times in the past, all of them occurring either in Columbus (Ohio) or Seattle with the last game taking place in 2007 at Husky Stadium with Jim Tressel at the helm for the Buckeyes.

The Buckeyes have held the edge in this series with an 8-3 advantage through the years with the first meeting taking place 50 years before the most recent meeting, in Washington as well, a Buckeye win as well.

Ohio State is currently on a three-game winning streak in this series and has never lost back-to-back games to Washington in that time. On the flipside, Ohio State has never extended its winning streak in this series to four games or beyond.

We are going to take a look back at several games in this series as we get ready to kick off nearly a month of coverage leading up to the Rose Bowl.

Anyone who knows Ohio State history knows that 1957 was a good year for the Buckeyes as Woody Hayes would win his second National Championship of his career with a 9-1 team that would go on to win the Rose Bowl over Oregon. But the Buckeyes would have to play Washington earlier in the season, coming off of a loss to TCU at Ohio Stadium in the season opener, 18-14.

Ohio State would go on the road and would play to a seven-all stalemate through the first half of action. Ohio State would open the floodgates in the second half with 28 unanswered points, starting with what many called the turning point of the season with Don Sutherin would return a punt 81 yards to give the Buckeyes a 14-7 lead.

Don Clark and Dick LeBeau would go on to have big game as well as Ohio State would get out of the Pacific Northwest with a big win and would march on to the Football Writers and UPI National Championships.

College Football on television was very different several generations ago and Ohio State would only have two games televised this season, and this would be the first, going out on NBC. Ohio State would come into this game off of an opening season loss to North Carolina at Ohio Stadium. Ohio State would go on the road in week two to take on the Huskies, looking to get back on the right track.

Washington would jump out to a 7-0 lead in the first quarter, but the Buckeyes would claw back to take a 14-13 edge to the halftime locker room with touchdowns by Will Sander and Tom Barrington.

The Huskies would not stay down for long however and in the third quarter, Don Moore would score twice and give the home team a 21-14 lead with a quarter and a half left to play in the game.

Hayes would need to make a move and he brought Arnie Fontes in to play quarterback and the young QB would make his head coach proud. Before the end of the quarter, he would call his own number and score from five-yards out but the Buckeyes would miss the extra point and would be down a point, 21-20 going into the fourth frame.

Ohio State kicker Bob Funk had to feel awful at that point but there would be a chance for redemption in the televised game. After Washington missed a field goal late in the quarter, Funk would get a chance as Ohio State would march down to the Washington 10-yard-line and give Funk that opportunity.

He would not miss and kicked the game-winning field goal with less than a minute left, Ohio State got out of town with a 23-21 win.

The Buckeyes would fall to No. 4 Michigan State two weeks later in East Lansing (Mich.) but would come back to win ‘The Game’ over Michigan, 9-7, in Ohio State’s only other televised contest of the year.

Ohio State dropped its previous game in 1966 to Washington and had some payback on the mind. Or maybe they just had the 1968 National Championship on their mind and the fact that they were riding high as the nation’s No. 1 team and fresh off of a 62-0 thrashing of TCU in the season opener.

This game was all Ohio State as Rex Kern ran for 136 yards and had 128 throwing the ball. Jim Otis had 111 yards and three touchdowns for good measure. The Ohio State defense was on point as well as it forced five Washington turnovers in this game.

Ohio State would take a 21-7 lead into the halftime locker room and would put this one completely out of reach in the third quarter with a pair of touchdowns and this game was never really in question.

The Buckeyes would have to fight and claw their way back this season after dropping the first two games of the year. Ohio State would end up as high as No. 7 going into its annual game with Michigan, a game that came out on the wrong end with a 26-24 final score. But Ohio State would beat Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, 28-12 to salvage a 10-3 season.

The loss to Washington was a low point of the season, Ohio State entered the year as the No. 9 team in the nation and dropped a tough loss to Alabama in the Kickoff Classic two weeks prior. Ohio State and Washington would match two top-20 teams as the No. 10 Buckeyes needed to get back in the win column and the No. 17 Huskies had plenty to prove as well.

Linebacker Chris Spielman would record 22 tackles for the Buckeyes but would comment later that he had ‘never been beaten like that’ in his life.

Everything unraveled in the second quarter when Washington would put up 24 points to take a 24-0 lead to the locker room. Ohio State would only score once in the game and would hand Ohio State a rare 0-2 start to a season.

Ohio State and Washington have only met twice in the 2000s, both Ohio State wins. The Buckeyes would come into this game after winning a 28-9 game in 2003 at Ohio Stadium.

The defending National Champion Buckeyes trailed at the end of the first half when Jake Locker found Anthony Russo on a 23-yard touchdown strike and would take a 7-3 lead after 30 minutes.

Ohio State would answer in the third quarter, first with a Todd Boeckman to Brian Robiskie touchdown strike from 68-yards out. Then Beanie Wells would run in a score from 14-yards out to give the Buckeyes a 17-7 lead after three quarters.

After Ryan Pretorius would kick his second field goal of the game to start the fourth quarter, current Ohio State interim wide receivers coach Brian Hartline would be on the receiving end of a 36-yard touchdown connection from Boeckman to give the Buckeyes a 26-7 lead with less than four minutes to go.

Washington would tack on a two-yard touchdown run by Louis Rankin to close the score to 13 points with less than a minute to go.

Ohio State running back Brandon Saine would cap off the game with a 37-yard touchdown run on what appeared to be a play designed to gain nothing and call the dogs off. There is debate if Jim Tressel was happy or unhappy that Saine scored on that play as Tressel was never really one to run up the score in a game.