No, they are not. The Rose Bowl is traditionally the winner of the Pac-10 and the Big-10. However, if the winner of the Big-10 is going to the BCS championship game the Rose Bowl can choose an alternate, and it does not have to be from the Big-10.
The Rose Bowl has tie-ins with the Pac 10 and Big 10 conferences.
The Rose Bowl (stadium) is located in Pasadena, California. The Rose Bowl Game is played each year on either January 1 or January 2 at the Rose Bowl typically and traditionally between the champions of the Big Ten conference and Pac-12 conference.
Michigan
The University of Alabama, the first team from the south invited to play in the rose bowl, won it 20-19. Alabama has won more rose bowls than any other non big-10, pac-10 team. Thier record in Rose bowls is 4-1-1. After Alabama dismantled USC 34-14 in the 1946 Rose Bowl, the Rose Bowl committee began only allowing Big-10 and PAc-10 teams to play in it.
No, not in the Rose Bowl game. The Rose Bowl game pits the champions of the Big 10 conference against the champions of the PAC 10 conference. Since both USC and UCLA are members of the PAC 10 conference, they cannot meet in the Rose Bowl game.
For the 2010 season, if either the Big 10 champion or PAC 10 champion is playing in the BCS National Championship Game and a non-BCS team qualifies for a BCS bowl, that team will play in the Rose Bowl. The University of Oregon won the PAC 10 and would normally play in the Rose Bowl. But since they are playing in the National Championship Game, obviously, they can't play in the Rose Bowl. So TCU, a non-BCS team that qualified for a BCS bowl, was slotted to play in the Rose Bowl.
As of the 2008 Rose Bowl, the University of Hawaii has never played in a Rose Bowl game.
The losers of the Rose Bowl get nothing but :(
No. It's the oldest bowl game (and sometimes called "the granddaddy of them all"), but it's just another bowl game. The Rose Bowl is also the name of the stadium in Pasadena, California, that hosts the Rose Bowl game. Traditionally, the Rose Bowl game matched the champions of the Big Ten conference and the Pacific Ten conference, but since the onset of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), that is no longer necessarily the case. The BCS rotates the national championship game among four stadiums -- the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl. Each year, there is a bowl game at each of those locations, plus there is an additional game held at one of those locations. The Rose Bowl therefore hosts the national championship game every fourth year (as well as the Rose Bowl game itself every year).
Bears won the Rose Bowl.
The "Rose Bowl" is part of the "Tournament of Roses" parade and celebration, which has been going on for over a century in Pasadena, California.