These aren’t exactly the salad days for Minnesota Gophers football. They haven’t had a winning season since 2008. They’ve barely qualified for a second-rate bowl game. And the only time they generate blaring headlines is when their coach has a seizure.

But just a half century ago, the Gophers were the toast of the town. While the expansion Vikings and expansion-like Twins were struggling to win in their erector-set stadium in Bloomington, the Gophers were coming off a national championship and making their second consecutive trip to the Rose Bowl.

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, today you can see what it was like to watch the Gophers on the national stage. It’s color video of the 1962 Rose Bowl against UCLA, matched up with the NBC radio play by play of Chick Hearn, the legendary voice of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Fred Hessler.

The 1961 Gophers, in fact, really had no business being in Pasadena for New Year’s Day. They were 7-2 and finished second behind undefeated Ohio State in the Big Ten Conference. But the faculty council at THE Ohio State University voted to decline the Rose Bowl invitation to protest the increasing emphasis of sports over academics. Really. You could look it up. As you might imagine, Woody Hayes was not amused.

So Minnesota gladly accepted the spoils, hoping to make up for its 17-7 loss to Washington the previous year in Pasadena. And Murray Warmath’s Gophers did, beating UCLA handily 21-3 for the school’s only Rose Bowl victory ever. In its last Rose Bowl appearance ever.

So sit back and enjoy a little gridiron history, as Sandy Stephens, Bill Munsey and Bobby Bell lead the maroon and gold to their only major bowl victory. Ski-U-Mah indeed!

Follow Kevin Cusick at twitter.com/theloopnow.