1929 Rose Bowl

The game was notable for a play in which Cal's All-American center Roy Riegels scooped up a Georgia Tech fumble and ran in the wrong direction towards his own goal line, earning him the dubious nickname, "Wrong Way".

The Stanford Indians had appeared in the 1928 Rose Bowl where they defeated Pittsburgh 7–6, having been selected controversially over USC the year before.

On January 1, 1929, the Golden Bears faced the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

Midway through the second quarter, Cal's Roy Riegels, who played center, picked up a fumble by Tech's Stumpy Thomason.

Riegels explained that he was hit during a pivot and wound up doing a U-turn, which faced him the opposite direction.

Despite the nationwide mockery that followed, Riegels went on to live a normal life, serving in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, coaching high school,[5] and college football—including time at Cal—and running his own chemical company.

Benny Lom was named Most Valuable player of the game retroactively when the award was instituted in 1953.

In a regular season game in 1964, Jim Marshall of the Minnesota Vikings also ran a recovered fumble into his own end zone.

The Georgia Tech Letterman's Club presented Riegels and Lom with membership cards.

[8] In 2003, a panel from the College Football Hall of Fame and CBS Sports chose Riegels' "Wrong way run in the Rose Bowl" one of six "Most Memorable Moments of the Century.