PASADENA — The Rose Bowl is the next stop on No. 1 Oregon’s national championship quest.

And Ohio State or Tennessee will be the Ducks’ opponent in the 111th edition of the Granddaddy of Them All.

Oregon (13-0) received the top seed in the first 12-team College Football Playoff on Sunday, sending the Ducks to celebrate the new year in Pasadena for the ninth time in school history as they continue to fight for their first national championship.

But first, the eighth-seeded Buckeyes (10-2) and the ninth-seeded Volunteers (10-2) will meet in Columbus on Saturday, Dec. 21, to determine Oregon’s opponent in the Rose Bowl Game, which is also a playoff quarterfinal.

The first-round matchup pits a pair of college football powerhouses with little history together. The Volunteers beat the Buckeyes 20-14 in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, 1996, in the schools’ only previous meeting.

Ohio State got home-field advantage despite missing out on a Big Ten title game date with Oregon after a humiliating 13-10 loss at home to Michigan last month. The Buckeyes also lost a 32-31 thriller to the Ducks in Eugene in October, but they might still get that rematch in California.

Oregon is clearly the class of this jumbled college football season, finishing as the only undefeated team in the FBS and the No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 after holding off Penn State 45-37 to win its first Big Ten championship.

For decades, the Rose Bowl cherished its position as a near-annual meeting of teams from the Big Ten and the various West Coast conferences most recently known as the Pac-12. The breakup of the Pac-12 and the permanent change in the Rose Bowl’s postseason position happened simultaneously over the past year, throwing the bowl’s future into flux.

But Oregon’s familiar presence in Pasadena next month will smooth that change significantly — and if the Ducks’ opponent is Ohio State, the traditionalists will still get exactly what they crave out of this game anyway. Oregon and Ohio State met in the Rose Bowl in 1958 and again on Jan. 1, 2010, with Terrelle Pryor leading the Buckeyes to a 26-17 victory.

Oregon is 4-4 in its previous trips to the Rose Bowl, and the modern Ducks have spent their holiday in Pasadena four times since 2010. They’ve won in their past three appearances, most recently beating Wisconsin 28-27 in 2020.

Ohio State has made 16 previous appearances in the Rose Bowl, third-most in the game’s history behind USC (34) and Michigan (21). The Buckeyes have won their last four games in Pasadena, most recently beating Washington in 2019 and Utah in 2022.

LA BOWL

UNLV and California have been selected to meet in the Art of Sport LA Bowl Hosted By Gronk at SoFi Stadium on Dec. 18.

The Rebels have enjoyed a 10-3 season, which includes a trip to the Mountain West Conference championship game, where they fell to Boise State.

The Golden Bears (6-6) became bowl eligible with a 24-21 victory over rival Stanford.