The 1965 Rose Bowl, played on January 1, 1965, was the 51st Rose Bowl Game. The Michigan Wolverines defeated the Oregon State Beavers by a score of 34–7. Michigan fullback Mel Anthony was named the Rose Bowl Player Of The Game.

The Wolverines had finished seventh in the Big Ten Conference the previous year, and had placed no higher than a tie for fifth under coach Bump Elliott. Michigan had not been to the Rose Bowl since 1951, but in 1964, they ran up an 8–1 conference record and clinched a Rose Bowl berth, taking a #4 ranking and an undefeated 3–0 postseason record into the game. Coach Elliott had been a receiver for the Wolverines in one of those games, the 1948 Rose Bowl, and had been an assistant coach at Oregon State under head coach Kip Taylor.

The Beavers made their third Rose Bowl appearance with a bit of controversy. Following the disbanding of the Pacific Coast Conference in 1959 due to a pay-for-play scandal, the reformed Athletic Association of Western Universities did not initially include Oregon State and Oregon. The two Oregon schools rejoined in time for the 1964 season, but the conference did not have time to reschedule a full head-to-head conference schedule. As a result, Oregon State and USC did not play each other, and when they finished with identical 3–1 conference records, the decision of which team to send to Pasadena was left to a vote among the conference's schools. At first, most people assumed Oregon State would get the nod based on their better overall record (8–2 vs. 6–3). However, when it was announced that the vote would be delayed until after USC's season ending game with top ranked and undefeated Notre Dame, many people inferred that if USC upset the Irish, they would get the nod. Indeed, USC shocked Notre Dame 20–17 so now many people assumed USC would get the Rose Bowl invitation. When the vote was taken just hours after the USC - Notre Dame game, the conferences' eight members split, four votes for both Oregon State and USC. The tiebreaker in such an instance was to eliminate the team that had more recently gone to the Rose Bowl, and Southern California had gone two years prior.

...
Wikipedia