The 2005 Rose Bowl Game was the 91st edition of the college football bowl game, held on January 1, 2005 at the self-named stadium in Pasadena, California. The Texas Longhorns, second-place finishers in the Big 12 Conference's South Division, defeated the Michigan Wolverines, co-champions of the Big Ten Conference, 38-37. Texas quarterback Vince Young and Michigan linebacker LaMarr Woodley were named the Rose Bowl Players of the Game, the first time that the Rose Bowl separately recognized an offensive and defensive player of the game.

The contest marked the first time Texas and Michigan faced each other in football, despite the long history of each school's football program, and also marked the first Rose Bowl in which a Big Ten team appeared without an opponent from the Pacific-10 Conference. ABC broadcast the game nationally in 720p format, the first time the Rose Bowl was telecast in HDTV in the United States.

The USC Trojans and the Oklahoma Sooners were invited to play in the BCS Championship game in the 2005 Orange Bowl. This gave the Rose Bowl an at-large pick, as it gave up its traditional Pacific-10 Conference champion representative. The 2005 Fiesta Bowl also got an at-large pick, having given up Oklahoma to the Orange Bowl. Because the non-BCS Utah Utes team had finished ranked in the top eight, either the Fiesta Bowl or Rose Bowl had to select them. That left one other slot open for the highest BCS ranked team. The Rose Bowl had first choice of this team over Utah, having given up the higher-ranked team.

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