A Jersey Guy: Say adios to Rose Bowl as we know it
The sun presumably will set in all its majestic splendor behind the San Gabriel Mountains on Monday night.
But if you are a member of the Rose Bowl committee you might want to check.
As former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese often said when major events were shaking up the world of college athletics: there are always unintended consequences.
And this week we had a doozy.
UCLA and USC, two foundations of the Pac-12, jumping to a super-sized revenue generating Big Ten which will be at 16 (and counting) going into the 2024 season.
For college football fans, the Rose Bowl, on January 1 (5 p.m. Eastern) was regarded in many circles of the best of the best: best time slot, best setting, matching two conferences with star tags.
It was the post season anchor before the business of a college football playoff and the ensuing systems started expanding from two, to four and now (inevitably) 12 teams.
For years, the Rose Bowl fought the good fight, maintaining that it would not budge on its date and time slot.
The BCS playoff system changed that, fittingly enough the Rose Bowl hosted what is arguably the greatest championship game of all time Texas' win over USC in 2005.
But that was not played on January 1.
Still, the Rose Bowl stubbornly maintained that has long as it had its Pac-12-Big 10 match up it didn't need a championship game to dress up the place--as long as January 1 at 5 p.m. was preserved.
If other bowls wanted to make their deals and move their games around to get better match ups, more power to them.
And the four team College Football Playoff system has also compromised the Rose Bowl, giving it some classic games (Oklahoma-Georgia) but not the Pac-12--Big Ten New Year's Day cherry the Rose Bowl wanted.
Now we are headed for a 12-team playoff system that the Rose Bowl could have accepted....
In setting up a 12-team playoff, the system being proposed is| basic
Top 4 seeded teams receive byes.
Four first round games between 5-12, 6-11, 7-10, 8-9 are played in December on the campus of the highest seeded teams.
Those winners take on the seeded teams in four bowl games divided among the six new Year's Day bowl venues--Rose, Sugar, Orange, Peach, Cotton and Fiesta.
The quarterfinal games would be played on New Year's Eve and January 1.
The two bowl games not included would then get the two semifinal games.
The championship site would then be given to the highest bidder from any venue that was interested
The Rose Bowl said, N5 o thanks, it could accept a quarterfinal game every few years, but the rest of the time it was sticking to its time slot and date-5. pm (Eastern) January 1.
The Rose Bowl's argument was that even when it did not have a quarterfinal game it would still get a pretty good Pac-12 Big 10 match up.
That is now gone.
The Pac-12 will be lucky if it is good enough to receive a Rose Bowl bid because the best teams of a conference minus USC and UCLA will be headed toward a spot in the 12-team playoff.Ohi
And if the Rose Bowl doesn't have a quarterfinal game, it is going to get a second or third Pac-12 team against a 3rd or fourth Big Ten team.
And to make matters worse, the CFP will play a quarterfinal game in the 5 p.m. January 1 slot whether the Rose Bowl wants to participate or not.
Good luck getting audience or advertisers for 9-3 Stanford vs 8-4 Wisconsin in a time slot which has No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 5 Clemson in the Peach Bowl.
Pasadena, you have a problem.
Of course, The Parade will not be touched.
But what happens after that and when it happens and who it happens too are
very much in doubt, with no easy or obvious solution.