I’m sure they all think we’ll get whooped in the Rose Bowl vs USC, they’re just happy it isn’t happening in the MNC game, where they expect “excitement” from having the top 2 teams in it. Something that has only really happened twice (the 2005-6 season and the 2002-3 season). But of course the OSU win in 2002-3 season doesn’t count, since they’re from the Big 10, and lost 2 snoozers in 2006-7 and 2007-8.

Not sure why Oklahoma and the Big 12 are getting a pass after OU’s snooze-fests in 2003-4 and 2004-5, but they are. Really by their arguments against the Big 10 this year, the only teams that should be allowed in the MNC game are from the SEC, since they’ve never lost there, and USC, since they only lost an exciting game there, and even though they come from a crappy conference, and even though they always manage to lose in that conference, c’mon, they’re USC!!!!

that half those games don’t involve a Big Ten champ.

The initial goal of every Big 10 team is to win the conference, and get a spot in the Rose Bowl. If things fall as they may, and the conference champion ends up in the BCS title game, thats great, however, Pasadena is the goal. Its the one sure thing a B10 champ can hope for.

The Rose Bowl IS college football in my view. New Year’s Day in one of the most beautiful areas in our country. The other three BCS Bowls are played in pro stadiums, while the Rose Bowl is distinctly college. Any true college football fan knows what a blessing it is to get to, what in my opinion, is the most symbolic and representative bowl of what college football should be.

Maybe for an all-or-nothing kind of fan, the Rose Bowl will be a disappointment, but anyone who has followed this team through thick and thin since they last played in the Rose Bowl knows what an honor and privilege it would be to finally get back there.

The 7 headed monster of stupidity!

The other bowl games beside the national championship are no more irrelevant than they were before the BCS. When Penn State beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl in early ’87—the game that was unquestionably the national championship—the Rose Bowl still mattered.

I’ll grant you that the Rose Bowl isn’t the same game that it once was, but that isn’t to suggest that it’s just not important and no one cares about it anymore. And, if you look at the BCS games that are currently being projected: ( http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowlprojection?season=2008&week=11), the Rose Bowl (with Penn State vs. USC) looks way more interesting than the Fiesta Bowl (Texas v. Utah or Ohio State) or the Sugar Bowl (Alabama v. Pitt or Boise State).

The Rose Bowl isn’t the national championship. It’s not chop liver either. Ask any Penn State fan at the beginning of the season if they would be happy with the team playing in the Rose Bowl, and everyone…everyone with a brain/moducum of commonsense…would say that yes, they’d be quite pleased.

The reality is that it’s virtually impossible to win or even play in the national championship consistently in college football. A reasonable fan ought to rout for their team to get to a BCS game every year, and recognize that if they can do it twice in four years, they’re a lot luckier than most.

Mr Rosewater, you should have selected a more appropriate name, like Mr. Sourpuss.

You make the argument that the Rose Bowl is irrelevant. You suggest in your last line of the original post that the game doesn’t matter.

If you want to be the kind of irrational fan who says that as soon as your team is elimated from national championship contention, nothing matters, go ahead. You’re going to have a lot of time on Saturdays for the rest of your life to do things other than bother with “irrelevant” regular season and bowl games that don’t directly feed into the national championship.

Part of what makes college football great are the rivalries, the pageantry, and the tradition. The Rose Bowl encompasses much if not all of what makes college football great. Because the outcome of the game will have no bearing on the national champion doesn’t make it irrelevant.

I don’t follow your logic, quite frankly. You seem to be saying
a) the media denegrates the Rose Bowl and
b) 3/4 years the Rose Bowl isn’t the national championship game,
therefore, the Rose Bowl is irrelevant.

The Rose Bowl didn’t become relevant because of the media’s opinion of it or because it hosted a game that directly impacted the National Championship. The Rose Bowl matters because fans in the Big Ten, Pac 10, and around the country enjoy the game and think it matters.

I think that remains true. I also think you’re a clown.

But then, you don’t follow the logic.

Name calling doesn’t help your cause either.

There’s realistically only 5-10 teams that have a LEGITIMATE chance at the National Championship each year. Most probably 5-7 of those teams are the same each year. That being said, there are at least 110 teams who would love to play in any one of the 4 other BCS games (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange). Just because there is an actual NC game now, doesn’t really diminish the importance of the other BCS games. With your logic, then all bowl games are currently irrelevant. What does it matter to a program if they can’t get into the National Championship, right? Why not just abolish all bowl games except the NC because they are irrelevant to anything.e

Plainly put, if Penn State doesn’t get to the National Championship, would you prefer they just stay home?

Of course it is.

The Big 10 Championship is just two wins away. We can’t afford to lose to either Indiana or Sparty State; these guys would just love to beat us in HV. Time to defend the homeland ! Hey there’s nothing any of us can do about Iowa. We have to regroup, beat the Hoosiers badly on Saturday and then smack Sparty right in the mouth. Whatever happens against USC is months away. A record of 11-1 for the regular season is damm good and probably more than most PSU fans expected. Hell of a lot better than the boys in Columbus or AA.

Maybe BSD can post the results of the pre-season win poll. That should put all of this in perspective.

Reg4

And if we go, that means we won the Big 10 – which is awesome!
And, like Reg4 sais, probably what most of us dreamed of in the pre-season win poll.

The number 3 ranked team is the first looser. The BCS championship is the focus of every single Saturday. Its quite an accomplishment to win the Big Ten and I’ll be proud of our team “if” we win it. However this post is an agonizinly accurate depiction of what the country (other than Big Ten/PAC 10 teams) thinks of the Rose Bowl. Its basically become the bowl in which the 2 winners from the “2 worst conferences” play. I dont agree with this logic and think its complet CRAP!!! But its undoubtedly the perception portrayed by the media.

I think the Rose Bowl is looked down upon by the media when it sticks with the tradition of the Pac10/Big10 matchup even when it isn’t forced to, and when doing so results in a less-than-stellar matchup. Case in point: last year, Rose Bowl picks Illinois over Missouri, resulting in a predictable blow-out.

I think that a USC/Penn State Rose Bowl would generate a lot of excitement around the country and the “Grandaddy of them all” would not be looked at once again as a “crazy uncle” (Scott Van Pelt, 2007). I think the media would throw plenty of kudos around for that Rose Bowl because it’s all about the matchup.

Last year, and in other recent years, the Rose Bowl hasn’t had the Big Ten Champ against the Pac Ten Champ, and that has hurt the matchup tremendously and, though the bowl sticks with the two conferences, the media and the country would rather see two great teams from any old conference. I think this is the greater point that Mr. Rosewater speaks to, and I agree with him.