For the Rose Bowl, and Alabama, location is second to the result

By Art Spander

In the end, the location became less important than the result. Which despite traditionalists, and that includes me, is what counts.

To paraphrase Shakespeare about a certain flower, what’s in a game? If a pathway to another national championship for Alabama smells just as sweet, call it what you choose.

The red rose logo was on the turf at AT&T Stadium. The Crimson Tide seemed to be everywhere and Notre Dame virtually nowhere.

If one tradition was upturned, the Rose Bowl Game being held in Texas — and not even Pasadena, Texas — another remained: domination by Alabama, a 31-14 win over the Fighting Irish, in the event copyrighted as the “granddaddy of them all.”

Because of the Covid-19 surge in California and restrictions against spectators, for only the second time in its more than 100-year history the game had to be played somewhere other than the 92,000-seat stadium in Pasadena, Calif. 

Notre Dame might believe it shouldn’t have been played anywhere.

The Fighting Irish were down quickly. Alabama (12-0 and deservedly ranked No. 1) was ahead 14-0 with some four minutes to go in the first quarter.

And trying to ignore the critics from the media, most located someplace in Middle America, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly agreed with the announcers who did the game for ESPN.

“They made plays on the perimeter,” said Kelly, an acknowledgment that Alabama had too much speed, particularly receiver DeVonta Smith, who caught three touchdown passes.

That’s as many as anyone ever has caught in a Rose Bowl. But just as whether a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear makes a sound, there could be a question from purists (guilty, your honor) whether a record not set in the Rose Bowl is really a Rose Bowl record.

The record for Notre Dame in Rose Bowl games, whether in southern California or north Texas, is now 1-1, the win coming over Stanford in the 1925 game.

The Notre Dame record for the year is 10-2, which would thrill the fans and alums of all but three other teams in the land but apparently displeases those who remember the glory days of the Golden Dome, and say as much — in print or on air.

Alabama has become what Notre Dame used to be. And that point rubs on Kelly. Or at least the comments in the media do.

The Fighting Irish are now 0-7 in either BCS or New Year’s six bowl games, going back to a rout by Oregon State (Oregon State?) in 2000.

Notre Dame has been outscored by 161 points in those games, with the closest loss by 14 points. So Kelly wasn’t happy with the postgame questioning.

“This wasn’t a matter of not getting knocked off the ball or not having enough players to compete against Alabama,” he said. “I’m sorry if you don’t like it and if the national media doesn’t like it, but we’re going to go back to work and we’re going to put ourselves back in this position again.

“We came up short with the firepower. There is not a wider story than with the firepower and making a few more plays.”

Alabama has the firepower and has been making plays for many seasons under head coach Nick Saban. He missed a few days during the schedule when he tested positive for Covid, but the Crimson Tide never missed a beat. 

What he did miss, however, was the place that gave the game its identity.

“I don’t think there’s anything quite like the Rose Bowl, the tradition, the setting, the mountains,” said Saban. “It’s just a phenomenal experience. I wish our players had gotten the opportunity.”

He’s not the only one. Hey, Rosie, it wasn’t the same on New Year’s Day without you.

Wisconsin couldn’t overcome itself or Justin Herbert

By Art Spander

PASADENA, Calif. — He didn’t even make the top 10 in the Heisman Trophy voting, a comedown for Justin Herbert after a cover story in Sports Illustrated. The other guys — the winner, Joe Burrow of LSU, and Jalen Hurts of Oklahoma — had more yards and more attention.

The NFL scouts remained high on Herbert, however. He could throw the ball, which was expected of a top quarterback. And as he proved once more, on a beautiful blue-sky New Year’s Day in the 106th Rose Bowl game, he also could run with it.

Herbert rushed for three touchdowns, the most by a quarterback in a Rose Bowl in 13 years, and carried the University of Oregon to a 28-27 win over Wisconsin — which gave Herbert and Oregon the opportunity by losing three fumbles and throwing an interception.

“We didn’t overcome ourselves,” a downhearted Paul Chryst, the Wisconsin coach, said of the four turnovers.

But Herbert, a 6-foot-6, 235-pound senior who grew up near the Oregon campus in Eugene, overcame his failures and disappointment against Arizona State — a loss that knocked the Ducks out of the chance to play for the national championship but in a way may have been advantageous.

Oregon instead of Oklahoma would have faced LSU in one of the semifinals last weekend. The Sooners were battered, 63-20. Instead, Oregon goes to the Rose Bowl the first day of 2020, gets a thrilling victory on Herbert’s 30-yard run in the fourth quarter and may get a spot as high as No. 5 in the final rankings.

Wisconsin, which appeared to have the majority of the usual sellout crowd of 90,462 on its side — if you lived in the Midwest, wouldn’t you head for California in winter? — also for a long, long while seemed to have the game.

There was a six-play sequence in the first quarter that included a 95-yard touchdown kickoff return by Wisconsin’s Aron Cruickshank, a Herbert interception and another Badger TD, which gave Wisconsin a 10-7 lead.

And Oregon was virtually offensive on offense, their combined passing and running yards total of 204 was the fewest in a Rose Bowl game in 41 years.

But you can’t keep giving the other team the ball. Eventually, you give it the game.

“We would have liked to finish it differently,” said Chryst. Wisconsin finished it, the season, 10-4, Oregon 12-2.

Not surprisingly, Oregon coach Mario Cristobal called Herbert the best college quarterback in the land.

“He can beat you in so many ways,” said Cristobal after a game in which Herbert basically beat the Badgers on the ground, running four yards for a TD in the first quarter, five for one in the second and then the big 30-yarder with 7:41 left in the game.

“You see the legs,” said Cristobal, “you see the arms. But what you don’t see is the leadership and the heart.  And in the end, that was the biggest difference, in my opinion.”

Herbert said of his winning TD dash, “It’s a rare opportunity. It’s something I haven’t experienced very often. But it was great.”

Oregon wasn’t great, but it was effective. The school’s athletic program (Nike U?) is on a roll. The basketball team, No. 5 in the rankings, very well could be better than the football team.

“We go hard now,” said Cristobal, an implication that the team was soft the previous year. “What we do is not kind and cuddly, and it’s certainly not for everybody. We stuck to a blueprint that is as demanding as it gets.”

A blueprint and a quarterback who runs and, most importantly, wins.

The Athletic: So many Rose Bowl memories, and Georgia and Oklahoma did their part to add to them

By Art Spander
Special to The Athletic

PASADENA, California — Not a bad Rose Bowl. For football. A lot of scoring. Several long runs by Georgia and Oklahoma. First overtime ever.

But no earthquakes. Or rain. Or card stunts or scoreboard mischief by students from good old Cal Tech, a school a few blocks away — or if you consider the chances of it ever playing in the game, a million miles away.

They’ve held the Bowl 104 times, which probably is long enough to earn the label traditional. I’ve been to the most recent 65 games, which also may be long enough to make me considered traditional. Or insane.

I started in 1954 A.D, Michigan State-UCLA (Spartans won 28-20) and haven’t stopped since. The way the swallows return to Capistrano each March from their winter grounds in Argentina thousands of miles away (or about the distance of Rodrigo Blankenship’s game-record field goal for Georgia), each January I return to the Rose Bowl. And why not?

There’s nothing like watching the sun set over the San Gabriel mountains east of the stadium. (Although Monday there was little sunshine, and plenty of haze).

Weather, mostly good, is so much a part of the Rose Bowl the late, great Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray would moan in print, “Oh no, not another beautiful day; another 20,000 Midwesterners will be moving here.”

I didn’t have to move. I’m an L.A. native. When I was a kid, L.A. didn’t have tall buildings, espresso stands or the Dodgers. It had movie stars and the Rose Bowl. I had no chance with the actress Jane Russell, so I signed up to sell programs at the game.

And year after year, as a West Coast guy, suffered while the Big Ten pummeled the western teams, taking 12 of the first 13 … Yikes!

That came to a halt when Jim Owens showed up at Washington and John McKay at USC. “What do you mean we’re not good enough?” McKay had told a reporter. Blush.

That song, “It Never Rains in Southern California”? Well, it’s rained on the Rose Bowl, if infrequently. The last time there was more than a mist, however, was 64 years ago, 1955. And it poured. So much so that Woody Hayes, the scourge of Columbus, whined about the USC band marching at halftime, even though Ohio State was able to march to a 20-7 victory. Days later cars were being towed out of the mud of the golf course which surrounds the bowl and is used as a parking lot.

Some people, like Hayes, who another New Year’s Day slugged photog Art Rogers, find disenchantment at the Rose Bowl.

Until the 1947 contract that matched champions of the Big Ten and Pacific Coast Conference, the Rose Bowl would bring in any Midwest or eastern school — Georgia in 1943 for example — to face one from the Coast.

UCLA wanted to play Army in that ’47 game, but was obligated to meet Illinois. Oh, the grumbling. Oh, the embarrassment. Illinois, with a back named Buddy Young running everywhere, won 45-14.

I’ve been attending the Rose Bowl so long I saw Cal (or as Millenials call it, UC Berkeley). Play in the Rose Bowl. Really. That was 1959. Before the Free Speech Movement.

Joe Kapp was the Golden Bears quarterback. He didn’t play defense. No one played defense for Cal, which had a 178-pound tackle, Pat Newell. “We’re going to make a freeway over him,” Forrest Evashevski, the Iowa coach, supposedly said. The Hawkeyes did that, Bob Jeter running for TDs and Iowa winning, 38-12.

A couple of years later, 14 of those future physicists from Cal Tech infiltrated the rally committee planning the card stunts for Washington before the 1961 Rose Bowl against Minnesota. So the card stunts included SEIKSUH.(Huskies spelled backward) and CALTECH. In 1984, when UCLA met Illinois, some other Cal Tech kids took over. It was hysterical, if you weren’t UCLA, Illinois or a Rose Bowl official.

“Granddaddy of them all,” is the copyrighted slogan the Rose Bowl people use to remind us it was in first in the business. I’ll raise a glass to that and to epic Rose Bowl played the opening day of 2018.

Copyright 2018 The Athletic

Newsday (N.Y.): Georgia outlasts Oklahoma in Rose Bowl to reach title game

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PASADENA, Calif. — You might say the national college football championship semifinal in that most historic of stadiums Rose to the occasion. In the end, so did the University of Georgia.

The third-ranked Bulldogs verified their nickname Monday night by coming back from repeated deficits to beat second-ranked Oklahoma, 54-48, in two overtimes and advance to the championship final.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2018 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Christian McCaffrey leads Stanford’s Rose Bowl rout of Iowa

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PASADENA, Calif. — Using the multiple skills of record-breaking sophomore halfback Christian McCaffrey to the maximum, Stanford ruined both Iowa and any sense of a competitive game with a 45-16 win in the 102nd Rose Bowl yesterday.

McCaffrey ran for 172 yards, caught four passes for 105 yards and a touchdown, returned a punt for 63 yards and a touchdown and returned a kickoff 28 yards. He set a game mark of 368 yards of total offense, 22 more than Wisconsin’s Jared Abbredaris had against Oregon in the 2012 Rose Bowl.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.