The Pac-10 Should Cut Ties with the Rose Bowl

So how can we not consider conference success in the Big Ten as less impressive than conference success in leagues such as the SEC or Big 12?

The Pac-10 has the exact same problem as the Big Ten: Namely, that the recent failures of the Big Ten have made it harder for Pac-10 teams to earn national respect, just like they have made it harder for Big Ten teams to earn national respect. Which brings me back to the Rose Bowl.

In the current college football environment, bowl games—specifically those on New Year’s Day or later, and even more specifically BCS bowls—are the best way for a conference to assert its supremacy. By sending its champion to the Rose Bowl to slaughter a Big Ten opponent each year, the Pac-10 is missing out on this opportunity.

The problem for the Pac-10 is that, when USC crushes a Big Ten team in the Rose Bowl, USC’s success isn’t the story. The Big Ten’s failure is. The majority of the country considers the outcome a validation of their beliefs about the Big Ten—“Of course USC won easily, they were playing a team with worse athletes"—as opposed to a confirmation of USC as a great football team and of the Pac-10 as a great football league.

If the Pac-10 wants to establish itself as an elite football conference, it needs to break away from the chains of the Rose Bowl and start pitting its top teams against the cream of the SEC and Big 12 in BCS bowls.

Only the Pac-10 can fix this problem. The Rose Bowl has no reason to change its arrangement—it is an extremely well-watched affair and is the only BCS bowl with its own television contract.

The Big Ten is perfectly fine with things as they are: Cutting ties with the Rose Bowl would only mean less prestigious bowl appearances and smaller paychecks for its teams.

It is the Pac-10 that is suffering, and there is only one solution.

The Pac-10 must cut ties with the Rose Bowl.

Breaking with tradition would enable the Pac-10 to prove itself against the nation’s heavyweights. Instead of easily defeating Penn State on Jan. 1, the Trojans could have matched up with Texas in the Fiesta Bowl this season.

Last year, USC could have played a hot Georgia team in the Sugar Bowl instead of annihilating an overmatched Illinois team. These top-five matchups could have gone a long way towards validating the Trojans as an elite team and the Pac-10 as an elite conference.

There is a lot to be said for tradition in college football. But tradition is holding the Pac-10 back right now.

The Pac-10 needs to stop sending its champion to the Rose Bowl. Otherwise, Pete Carroll will once again just be talking about how his team deserves to play against the best teams in the nation next January.

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