The Importance of the Rose Bowl

Rachel Bachman likes the Rose Bowl. How much does she like it? Apparently, she likes the Rose Bow so much that she is advocating for the Big Ten and the Pac 12 to secede from the NCAA (and form their own little football league) in the face of a playoff system, because a playoff system might hurt the prestige of the Rose Bowl. How quaint.

I like the Rose Bowl, too. It has a great tradition. But let's be serious here. If the Big Ten and the Pac 12 decided to leave the rest of the college football world, literally taking their ball and going home, they're going to be missed. But not that much.

They need to renew their vows and pledge themselves to serve the greater glory of the best thing about college football: the Rose Bowl.

The Rose Bowl is great, but it isn't the "best thing about college football". It's one piece of the puzzle. There's so much that's great about college football, you could abolish the Rose Bowl today, and college football would survive. You would still have Army/Navy game, Notre Dame's Irish Guard, Alabama would still have the Bear, Florida would still have memories of Spurrier, Clemson and Carolina would still be feuding, Texas would still have Bevo and huge egos, Ole Miss would still have the Grove, and that's just to name a few. I could go on all day. College football is bigger than one bowl game: even the Rose.

So what would happen if the Big Ten and the Pac 12 packed it in to save their precious Rose Bowl?

The Rose Bowl would become a joke. It would be HEY THERE'S A PLAYOFF SYSTEM, and "Oh yeah, they still have the Rose Bowl". Rather than be part of the system, the Rose would be all alone. The Big Ten and the Pac 12 can say goodbye to getting any good recruits, they can say goodbye to the millions of dollars that come from the TV deals revolving around the new playoff system, and they can say goodbye to legitimacy in the college football world. This may be news to Ms. Bachman, but the TV networks don't care about basking in the greater glory of the Rose Bowl. They care about basking in the greater glory of MONEY. It's all about the money.

Also, I don't accept the premise that the playoff system would diminish the Rose Bowl. I went to the Capital One Bowl in Orlando last year to watch my Gamecocks trounce the Cornhuskers. It didn't bother me that there were other games to be played later that would determine the champion. Having a playoff system won't really marginalize any other bowls to the extent they aren't already marginal games anyway. In fact, we should probably eliminate some bowl games. (PapaJohns.com Bowl, I'm looking in your direction.)

I'm not sure what Ms. Bachman thinks she knows about college football, but she's seriously misguided. Seceding from the larger union of college football would have disastrous effects on the Big Ten, the Pac 12, and the Rose Bowl. Let's all get on the same page and get a playoff system. And maybe we can toss in relegation. That would be fun.