Orange Bowl Had Juice, so Rose Bowl Gets Pulp

The Rose Bowl got its dream matchup Sunday, Iowa vs. USC, featuring possibly the top two finishers in this week’s Heisman Trophy balloting -- quarterbacks Brad Banks and Carson Palmer.

Too bad this terrific Rose Bowl game is going to be played in the Orange Bowl.

The good news is the Orange Bowl, far as we know, did not insist the Rose Parade be moved from Pasadena to South Beach. This will come as a big relief to Bob Eubanks.

And to the many absurdities of the bowl championship series, add this one: Had UCLA defeated Washington State on Saturday, and not the other way around, the Rose Bowl would have been USC versus Iowa.

Thanks again, Bob Toledo.

Instead, the Orange Bowl played the BCS rule book like a fiddle, exercised every clause and loophole known to Perry Mason and ended up with the best bowl game of the bunch -- yeah, maybe even better than No. 1 Miami vs. No. 2 Ohio State.

The Rose Bowl gets a very good game pitting two-loss, top-10 teams, Washington State and Oklahoma -- a game the Holiday Bowl would die for.

When you look at it, really, the Rose Bowl only missed its traditional matchup by two digits: Big 12 minus two equals Big Ten, right?

The Rose Bowl hoped this USC-Iowa matchup would not happen, thought it would not happen, prayed it would not happen, yet in the end grossly underestimated the self-serving, money-driven, perfectly-within-its-rights interests of the Orange Bowl against the long-term best interests of the BCS.

Having USC-Iowa in the Orange Bowl put the Rose Bowl in a bad public relations spot, but in the end, money trumped tradition.

USC vs. Iowa is a five-star game for the Orange Bowl, and that’s all that mattered to the Orange Bowl.

You wonder what Jim Murray, the late, great Times columnist, would have written of this development. With due respect, we offer our best guess.

Having Iowa and USC play in the Orange Bowl is like having the Christians and lions face off in a parking lot. It’s like making Horowitz play the accordion, Pavarotti singing lead in a barbershop quartet.

Today, Rose Bowl hard-liners who never wanted to join the BCS in the first place are probably being coaxed down from the tallest Rose Parade floats.

Wasn’t last year sinful enough, when the Rose Bowl was moved to Thursday night, two days after the parade?

On top of that, instead of No. 1 Miami against No. 2 Oregon, the computer geeks handed the Rose Bowl lucky-to-be-there Nebraska, which was promptly corn-fed to Miami in a game that was over by halftime.

And now this?

Instead of the Lawry’s Beef Bowl, are Iowa and USC are going to stage a stone crab-eating contest at Joe’s?

Mind you, the BCS is sensitive to the Rose Bowl’s plight.

“If I said it wasn’t an issue, I’d be lying,” BCS Coordinator Michael Tranghese said Sunday. “I think all of us in dealing with the Rose Bowl probably don’t have as much appreciation for what they have been through. It’s hard enough for them not to have Iowa and I think they were expecting Iowa and Southern Cal in different bowl games. And I think for the longest time this week we were headed in that direction.”

Directions changed and, tradition be damned, the Orange Bowl did what was best for the Orange Bowl.

In this brave new BCS world, you cut the best deal you can and run for cover.

The Rose Bowl put on its best face Sunday in welcoming outsider Oklahoma to its game. For what it’s worth, Sooner Coach Bob Stoops was a no-show on the conference call.

Gee, didn’t he know this was the Rose Bowl? Coach Mike Price of Washington State, the legitimate Rose Bowl anchor as Pac-10 champion, tried his best to put the best spin on it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said of the debate over this year’s game. “This is a great game.”

In a way, Price is right. This could have been a Washington State-Colorado Rose Bowl had Oklahoma not won Saturday night’s Big 12 title game.

Yet, the broader issue will not, and should not, go away.

What the Rose Bowl needs to do in the off-season is march into BCS headquarters and demand the same protection for its brand that Notre Dame got from the BCS for simply being Notre Dame.

In fact, at this moment, Notre Dame lawyers probably are drafting a clause in which all 10-2 Notre Dame teams that lose to USC by 31 points be granted an automatic BCS bid.

Since the BCS is already filled with a thousand provisions, what’s one more going to hurt?

The Rose Bowl ought to get out a legal pad and get the BCS to sign off on a clause in which the Rose Bowl can never lose both Big Ten co-champions in years it doesn’t have the national title game.

Of course, the Rose Bowl might get an earful about BCS chips falling where they may from Tranghese, the BCS chief and Big East commissioner.

In 2000, Virginia Tech was left out of the BCS mix despite going 10-1 with quarterback Michael Vick.

“I didn’t get a lot of sympathy then,” Tranghese said. “I didn’t get much support from anybody, to be perfectly blunt about it. I reminded everybody, ‘Don’t cry to me in 2002.’ The system has never been perfect. I make no bones about that.”

Yet, Tranghese acknowledged the Rose Bowl issue needs to be addressed because, “for the overall good of college football, I’m concerned.”

As for talk about the Rose Bowl leaving the BCS, we ask, leave it for what?

One of the problems is that the Rose Bowl is at philosophical odds with its partners.

While the Rose Bowl was bemoaning its fate Sunday, commissioners Tom Hansen and Jim Delaney of the Pac-10 and Big Ten were in the corner counting the $18 million each conference will split for putting two schools into the BCS.

What’s the problem?

The Rose Bowl can’t pull out of the BCS without the Pac-10 or Big Ten, unless it wants to forge a new East-West partnership with the Mountain West and Conference USA.

No, the Rose Bowl is stuck in this BCS muck, for better or worse, mostly worse.

The only thing it can do now is roll up its sleeves and play hardball.

For 55 years, the Granddaddy had no decision to make when it came to the participants. It simply waited for the Pac-10 and Big Ten champions to be crowned and then handed out roses.

But, you know, there may come a year down the road when the Rose and Orange bowls end up submitting pieces of paper for the same at-large pick.

Let’s say that at-large pick is Miami, and the Orange Bowl really wants the Hurricanes.

And let’s say the Rose Bowl, using its one-time preferential pick, wants Miami too.

While the Rose Bowl would sympathize with the Orange Bowl’s desire to keep Miami at home, it takes Miami.

Nothing personal, you know, just business.