USC gets Big Ten television exposure, competition with Ohio State and Michigan, and mountains upon mountains of dollars. The move to the Big Ten confers numerous benefits and advantages upon the Trojans. Strictly in terms of business sense and economic positioning, the move is a home run for USC. We can all appreciate that and be happy about it.
Yet, this move from the Pac-12 certainly elicits mixed emotions because of what it means for the Rose Bowl and other college football traditions, which took a beating in this geography-busting shift.
Our friends at Buffaloes Wire asked us what we thought about all of this, and we couldn’t ignore the ways in which this hurts the sport we once knew:
this very likely blows up the Rose Bowl and the bowl system. It removes a remaining swath of college football traditions which are important to me and other fans of the sport who are over 40 years old and who grew up on the cherished rhythms and rituals of New Year’s Day. How does the Rose Bowl retain a claim to being part of college football tradition today? The Pac-12-Big Ten relationship which made the Rose Bowl what it is has been demolished. The Rose Bowl will cease to be a significant part of college football in the way we have known it to exist. You won’t have Michigan or Ohio State playing USC, Oregon or Washington in Pasadena anymore. That’s done. The Rose Bowl might continue to exist as a College Football Playoff quarterfinal or semifinal, but that makes it one game in a sea of other games, without any special standing. There might be a playoff game in Pasadena every year, but the destruction of the Pac-12-Big Ten dynamic makes this game a Pasadena game, and not “The Rose Bowl” as we have known it.
It’s a sad day for anyone who values college football’s traditions.
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