Grip on Sports: Rarely, if ever, does the Rose Bowl disappoint
A GRIP ON SPORTS • The Rose Bowl was sure exciting yesterday. Especially if you consider it was just one of those meaningless bowl games. Sure didn’t seem that way to the USC players many reports had crying on the field afterward. Or leading the marching band in the fight song. Read on.
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• There is something about the Rose Bowl, or as WSU alum Keith Jackson termed it so long ago, “the granddaddy of them all.” It isn’t like any other college football game. It’s usually more exciting, it’s usually more contentious and it’s usually better than all the other postseason games.
Even the playoff ones we have these days.
There is no reason for it other than, maybe, tradition. But even that tradition has been waylaid a bit in the modern era. There is no longer a guarantee the best of the Big Ten will match up with the best of the Pac-12. It supposedly didn’t happen this year – though there are a least a dozen people in Pennsylvania that will tell you the Big Ten’s best team wasn’t in the final four.
Let’s just say the two teams that played yesterday in Pasadena each held wins over their conference’s playoff representative and move on.
Because parsing that sort of minutia would take away from how much the game meant to the teams. And by teams, I mean it was obvious both of the groups on the Rose Bowl’s surprisingly loose turf were playing for more than just the name on the back of the jersey.
OK, that’s a cliché. Yesterday’s game, which stretched well into yesterday evening, deserves more than that. It deserves respect. And it deserves a chapter in Rose Bowl lore, which is a long-running history book.
Rarely, if ever, has a Rose Bowl game featured such sticktoitness, if you will grant me a made-up, hashtag-like word. Heck, my memory stick reaches back into the dark ages and I can’t think of another one with more.
The 1963 Rose Bowl comes to mind, though I really don’t remember it for any reason other than how USC’s 42-37 win over Wisconsin stuck in my dad’s memory. He talked about it all the time. Or the 2012 game with Oregon’s 14-0 fourth quarter. The 2006 national title showdown between Texas and USC, or the year before when Texas horned in on the usual matchup, with a high-scoring win over Michigan, are in there somewhere.
There is the 1999 game, the 1998 bowl – Cougars fans are still looking for the final couple seconds – and the 1993 contest. There is the 1980 game, the … oh heck, you get the picture.
Jackson, who made a brief appearance on last night’s broadcast, was right. It is the granddaddy of bowl games. It is also the most venerated of them all and not just because it was first. It is also the most important, the most exciting. It is just the best.
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Gonzaga: The Zags stayed undefeated last week, others lost and, lo and behold, they moved up in the polls. They are fifth in the Associated Press poll, fourth in the coaches’.
WSU: USC’s Rose Bowl win evened the Pac-12’s record this postseason to 3-3. … Washington is expected to lose a handful of players with eligibility left to the NFL draft. John Ross (pictured) is the first to head that way. … Oregon is losing a defensive lineman to BYU and gaining an assistant coach with West Coast ties. … UCLA has picked its latest offensive coordinator. … In basketball, Oregon is much better when Dillon Brooks is healthy. … Utah is better when its offense shares the ball. … And Arizona is better when players do the little things.
EWU: As we linked yesterday, Utah has hired away Eastern’s offensive coordinator Troy Taylor. … The Big Sky’s player of the week comes from Weber State again.
Chiefs: Spokane made a trade yesterday, trying to bolster its attack for the WHL’s stretch run.
Preps: We can pass along the News Tribune’s Washington basketball polls for girls and boys.
Seahawks: It hasn’t been that great of season thus far. Injuries have played a part, sure. But now the Hawks are in the playoffs, they feel as if they can turn on the power. We’ll see. … The Lions will have a say in Saturday’s outcome. … Earl Thomas believes if he were healthy, the Hawks would have the week off. … Would it have been enough time to heal their running game?
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• Now the long slog begins. No more major holidays for a while. And cold weather on the playbill until at least March. Oh well, there is always basketball. Until later …