USC backup quarterback
Jim Hardy threw three touchdown passes to lead the Trojans to their seventh Rose Bowl
victory and eighth PCC
championship.[2][5][8]
For the first time, the Rose Bowl was broadcast on the
radio abroad to all American servicemen, with General
Eisenhower in
Western Europe allowing all troops who were not on the front lines to tune in and listen.[7][9]
Favored Washington won all four of its games in an abbreviated season without any PCC matchups, as the other five programs in the Northern Division were on hiatus in 1943 (and
1944).[10][11] They played
Whitman College,
Spokane Air Command (twice), and the
March Field Flyers.[1] The Rose Bowl was the Huskies' sole conference game of the season; the three teams of the Southern Division (USC,
UCLA and
California) played each other twice;
Stanford was on hiatus until the
1946 season.
Washington's most recent game was two months earlier on October 30,[12][13] and they had lost a dozen players to active military duty since, including two of their best backs, Jay Stoves (a transfer from idle
Washington State) and Pete Susick.[7] Head coach
Ralph Welch filled roster holes with
Navy V-12 trainees and
draft rejects who recently arrived at campus, leaving only 28 players available for the game.[7] Oddsmakers made the Huskies two-touchdown favorites to beat USC, but the fielded team differed greatly from that of the regular season.[7]