Minnesota had appeared in the 1961 Rose Bowl, losing to Washington. At the time the Grand Daddy of Them All had a “no repeat” rule excluding Big Ten teams from back-to-back appearances. Fast forward to 1962, Ohio St won the conference (the Gophers took 2nd place), but turned down the bowl as they wanted to “focus on academics”. So the Tournament of Roses invited Minnesota as an at large team, not a Big Ten team going to back-to-back Rose Bowls to face off against UCLA.
So for today’s throwback I’ve got the visual and textual recap of the only Rose Bowl win in Gopher program history.