The 1947 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game, the 33rd edition of the Rose Bowl Game. The Illinois Fighting Illini defeated the UCLA Bruins, 45–14. Illinois halfbacks Buddy Young and Jules Rykovich shared the Player of the Game award, named when the award was created in 1953 and selections were made retroactively.

This was the first Rose Bowl game that featured teams from the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) and the Big Nine Conference (now the Big Ten). It is known as the first "modern" Rose Bowl, and modern Rose Bowl records date to this game. The conference tie-ins were defined by the terms of an exclusive five-year agreement. The agreement was renegotiated with the newly formed Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU; later known as the Pacific-8, Pacific-10, and Pac-12) following the disbandment of the PCC in mid-1959. The agreement remained in place until the 1999 Rose Bowl, when the Rose Bowl became part of the Bowl Championship Series.

At the beginning, the Rose Bowl game was intended to match a West Coast team against the best of the nation. The first team to appear was Michigan in the 1902 Rose Bowl when they defeated Stanford 49-0. The Rose Bowl began to be hosted by the Pacific Coast Conference when it was revived in the 1916 Rose Bowl, and permanently with the 1920 Rose Bowl. Ohio State was the next Big Ten team to participate what they lost to California 0-28 in the 1921 Rose Bowl. The Big Ten did not participate in bowl games following that game. The University of Chicago discontinued its football program in 1939 and withdrew from the conference in 1946, leaving the Big Nine Conference.

During World War II, many college football schools had dropped some conference opponents and instead played football against local military base teams. Many colleges could not even field teams due to the draft and manpower requirements. After the war was over, demobilization and the G.I. Bill enabled returning servicemen to attend college. The 1946 season was the first true post-war college football season with travel restrictions lifted and civilian college opponents returning to schedules.

The Big Nine agreed, after much negotiating over payments, rules, and ticket allocations to a five-year exclusive deal with the Rose Bowl to send the conference champion to meet the PCC conference champion. UCLA, USC, Minnesota and Illinois all voted against it. UCLA, the PCC conference champion, expressed interest in playing either Army or Notre Dame, who had played to a scoreless tie in the 1946 Army vs. Notre Dame football game.

The Big Nine and PCC were of the same accord when it came to treating players as amateurs, as compared to the semi-professional status that the Southern Universities proposed. Also, the Big Nine and PCC both had the same attitudes towards desegregation and allowing African-Americans to play football. Many other universities were still segregated. None of the Southeastern Conference schools had an African American athlete until 1966. The Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sugar Bowl would not be integrated until 1948, 1955, and 1956 respectively.

The UCLA Bruins had last appeared in the 1943 Rose Bowl where they were held scoreless against Georgia. The Bruins fielded the strongest team in their history to date. It was the second undefeated team since the 1939 6–0–4 team, and the first undefeated and untied team in school history. After convincing wins over Oregon State and at Washington, UCLA entered the AP Poll at number 5. The Bruins would go to number four after defeating number 17 Stanford, 26–6. Coming into the November 23, 1946 UCLA–USC rivalry football game, the Rose Bowl was on the line for both USC and UCLA. UCLA prevailed, 13–6, to win the PCC. In the Bruins' final game of the regular season, they blanked the Nebraska Cornhuskers, 18–0.

The 10-0 UCLA Bruins entered the Rose Bowl as the bookmakers' favorite, having outscored their opponents 313-72.^{[citation needed]} All-conference quarterback Ernie Case called the plays for a prolific offense featuring pass-catching ends Burr Baldwin and future hall-of-famer Tom Fears, and bolstered by the breakout running of fullbacks Cal Rossi and Johnny Roesh and halfback Gene Rowland. Rossi weighed in as the Bruins' heaviest back at just 170 lb, but the team averaged a shade over 200 lb per man. Several linemen in the 230 lb range (as big as they came in the days of one-platoon football^{[citation needed]}) made for an intimidating and forceful UCLA front which stampeded west coast rivals with apparent ease. Averaging just 190 lb the Illini were noticeably smaller.^{[citation needed]}