Saying Goodbye to Last Traditional Rose Bowl

Bfan

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"....No. 11 Penn State's 35-21 win over No. 8 Utah marked the end of an era. It is the last time the traditional combatants in the Rose Bowl will meet for the foreseeable future.

In fact, whether the Big Ten and Pac-12 ever face each other again in Pasadena will be a matter of coincidence.

After the 2023 season, the Rose Bowl will be a College Football Playoff semifinal. So only by chance will a Big Ten and/or Pac-12 team play in the game. For different reasons, beginning with the debut of the 12-team playoff in 2024, the same circumstances will apply.

"That dawned on us ... that we're playing each other in the last 'traditional Rose Bowl,'" Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft told CBS Sports. "For someone who grew up in the Midwest and in the Big Ten, this is it. It truly is the Grandaddy. So, to have this kind of moment is surreal.""


 


I think it stopped being “traditional” a while back.
Maybe this was the last Traditional Rose Bowl, which acknowledges the greater circumstances...

Good point though and well taken. If this had been the Gophers, I'd certainly embrace PSU's interpretation.

If anything, too bad the University of Chicago was not playing to represent the Big 10:p...
 


Maybe this was the last Traditional Rose Bowl, which acknowledges the greater circumstances...

Good point though and well taken. If this had been the Gophers, I'd certainly embrace PSU's interpretation.

If anything, too bad the University of Chicago was not playing to represent the Big 10:p...
Or Purdue...

John Smart.
 
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Maybe this was the last Traditional Rose Bowl, which acknowledges the greater circumstances...

Good point though and well taken. If this had been the Gophers, I'd certainly embrace PSU's interpretation.

If anything, too bad the University of Chicago was not playing to represent the Big 10:p...
I wish U Chicago could go D1 hockey and join as an associate hockey member. Just for history.
 

So is the rose bowl just always a college football playoff semifinal now? I don’t remember how that saga played out.
 

Someone posted this same OP in another thread, so I'll say the same thing here:

nothing is set in stone for the 2026 and beyond CFP contract.


They will use the 2024 and 2025 seasons to test-drive the 12-team playoff format. Likely, there will be bits that they don't like or that can be improved, and they'll want to tweak it.


I could see pressure to move not just the first round, but the quarter-finals, maybe even the semi-finals to campus sites. Would be just like the NFL playoffs, then. Natty, like Super Bowl, neutral site.
 


NCAA.COM | DECEMBER 1, 2022​

College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams starting with the 2024 season​


The College Football Playoff Board of Managers members have agreed that the expanded 12-team CFP field will begin with the 2024-25 season. In September, the board voted to start the 12-team playoff field in 2026, though it left open the possibility of moving that up to 2024 or 2025. Now the 2024 start is official.

Here's how the 12-team playoff bracket would work:

  • The 2024 first round will happen the week ending Saturday, Dec. 21 at the home field of the higher seed or at another site determined by the higher seed. Specific game dates will be announced later. The matchups would be No. 12 at No. 5, No. 11 at No. 6, No. 10 at No. 7 and No. 9 at No. 8.

  • For 2024 and 2025, the quarterfinal rounds and the semifinal games will be played at rotated bowls
    • 2024 quarterfinals: Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl

    • 2024 semifinals: Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl

    • 2025 quarterfinals: Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl

    • 2025 semifinals: Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl

    • 2024-25 season title game: Jan. 20, 2025 in Atlanta

    • 2025-26 season title game: Jan. 19, 2026 in Miami

As previously announced, the expanded 12-team playoff will be made up of the six conference....
 



Yep, there already was a contract in place through the 2025 season (NY6/natty played in Jan 2026). Was the current 4-team playoff for most of it. They just agreed to expand it for the final two years.

There will be a whole new, separate negotiation for making a new contract for the 2026 season and onwards.
 

Yep, there already was a contract in place through the 2025 season (NY6/natty played in Jan 2026). Was the current 4-team playoff for most of it. They just agreed to expand it for the final two years.

There will be a whole new, separate negotiation for making a new contract for the 2026 season and onwards.

As the Big Ten and SEC dominate, I wonder what that will look like in 10 years.
 


I'm assuming the qf games will be played around Christmas and sf games on New Years!
Will be interesting to see how they do it with the 2024 calendar.

Bfan's post says the first round will be the week ending in Dec 21. So they could be trying to have games on Thur, Fri, and Sat.


Then Xmas is the immediately following Wed, and of course NYD is the Wed after that, so about 10-ish days from Dec 21.

Would guess the QF will be around NYD. That allows Rose to be a QF game and keep its usual NYD slot.

Will guess SF will then be not the immediately following Sat, but the Sat after that. So around Jan 11 (2025). Natty towards the end of Jan?
 



If that's how it works out, the issue really ends up being: are they going to "force" the Rose Bowl to be a semi-final game, well removed from (7-10 days after) NYD, once every three years?

And will the Rose accept that? Or will they pull out of the CFP altogether.



An argument can be made that there might be/should be a push to just have the playoff be a real playoff: winners keep getting "home" games on-campus. Then just the Natty gets bid out as a neural site.

That would free up the major bowls to be standalone, side games.
 

I think it actually is more traditional going forward. More likely to have conference champ vs conference champ and a strong chance it is a Big10 team as one of them. Whether it is Pac12 or not isn’t that big of a deal to me.
 


I'd like to see teams travel by train for away games.
back-to-the-future-train-wreck.gif
 

I'd like to see teams travel by train for away games.
Just before this years Rose Bowl they mentioned that Penn St played in the 1923 game and it took 6 days to get from Happy Valley to Pasadena.

This past summer my cousin traveled from Portland, OR to Providence, RI in only 4 days via Amtrack.

Progress.
 



Likely an unpopular opinion here, but am I the only one who thinks a first round game at the host school just kind of sucks for the players? For example, under the proposed playoff format, would you rather be a player for Purdue going to Orlando for a neutral site bowl game or would you rather be Kansas State going to play Utah in Utah?
 

Feels like this stopped being a traditional Pac 12/Big 10 matchup a while ago but looking at the results it has been those two conferences the majority of the time. That said, there have been 8 times since 2000 where the teams involved were not from the traditional conferences: 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2021.
 

Right. It hasn't been the real Rose Bowl since the BCS was formed from the Bowl Alliance after the Rose Bowl finally joined the others to create a true #1 vs #2 matchup at the end of the season.

So, 1997 was the last true one, in that sense.
 

Feels like this stopped being a traditional Pac 12/Big 10 matchup a while ago but looking at the results it has been those two conferences the majority of the time. That said, there have been 8 times since 2000 where the teams involved were not from the traditional conferences: 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2021.
Agree. I think we have a better chance of the traditional rose bowl going forward. I would think it would benefit all to at least get one of the Big10 and Pac12 champs in this game.
 

If the NFL can magically "re-seed" its conf brackets after the Wild Card round, I see absolutely no reason that the CFP can't do musical chairs with the QF match-ups, to produce "traditional matchups for the historic bowl game hosts" or some such, if they wanted to.
 

If the NFL can magically "re-seed" its conf brackets after the Wild Card round, I see absolutely no reason that the CFP can't do musical chairs with the QF match-ups, to produce "traditional matchups for the historic bowl game hosts" or some such, if they wanted to.
Agree that they could but also doubt that preserving any sort of traditional matchups in a particular game is not a priority or anything they will work to maintain.
 

Agreed 100%.

Particularly because I think the Sugar Bowl means far less to the SEC than the Rose means to the Big Ten, so the SEC will be happy to destroy its tradition as much as possible.
 

They need to just get the “bowls” out of the playoff entirely now that it’s 12 teams.
 




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