[NU Sports] Well, we knew it was coming ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

But now they have a story on it up ...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4359924

"Starting with the 2010 season and running through the 2013 season, the first time the Rose Bowl loses one of its conference champions and a team from one of the non-automatic qualifying leagues earns a BCS bid, the Rose Bowl must take that team."

So here is an open letter to the idiots who run the B(C)S ...

It cannot be said enough what a TERRIBLE idea this is all around. It doesn't give the Mountain West and WAC folk what they want (a legit shot at the so-called title game) and it spits on the Big Ten and Pac 10 tradition to try and drag down the Rose Bowl to the rest of the B(C)S level.

Once again, the B(C)S has succeeded in delivering the worst of both worlds -- destroying the hallowed Pasadena tradition with no real work on getting us a legitimate title game.

All the Rose Bowl folks need to do is look at the Orange Bowl - three out of four years, it hosts a meaningless game that doesn't even draw as much as some high school football games -- all for crappy ratings on a weeknight after the New Year's holiday is over. Actually, now they get to do that 4 out of 4 years but then 1/4 of the time they have a so-called championship game on the same field a week later. Goodie.

Like I said before, the Sugar and Cotton have been B(C)S losers as well (and the Fiesta is a big winner) but no one has had the life sucked out of them as much as the crush job the B(C)S did on the Orange Bowl. Now they have their sights set on Pasadena and ruining this game.

USC vs. Illinois may not have been a good game (but look at the records and that's been the EXCEPTION, not the rule in Pasadena the last few decades), but still would you rather watch the Illini vs. Trojans with the parade, bands, pageantry, Keith Jackson's ghost, etc. ... or would you like to see Ohio State vs. Boise State? USC vs. Utah? Any chance you'll see some empty seats for those games like those years they tried to dump Big XII teams into Pasadena? Besides games like the Illinois one are more a result of USC slipping up one game (and getting no SEC-like break because of west coast bias) and thus playing a home game against the Big Ten's #2 team.

We get higher ratings and better games year in and year out than the rest of the B(C)S and they're jealous. They have no idea how to improve their crummy product, so they want to make the Rose Bowl worse so they look better by comparison. What's next, let a C-USA team into the Citrus Bowl every 3 years???

Oh well, always both maddening and cathartic to rant against the idiocy of the B(C)S. Yet again they've swooped in from on high to make a situation worse and are well on their way to destroying all that is good about college football. They took out the incentive to play tough schedules and now we're left with a really awful September slate of interconference matchups. They've gotten rid of the Bowden Computer System and replaced them with the Big XII Computer System. They figured out how to get a 2-loss SEC team into a home game for the title, but not how to get an unbeaten team from a major conference into the title game. They've ruined January 1st and the tradition of getting big ratings and selling out most of the major bowl games - not just one.

Here's an idea B(C)S folk - try tweaking your system to give college football fans a REAL #1 vs. #2 matchup at the end of the season for a legitimate national title. You haven't done that in four years and only three times in your pathetically inept existence. Try fixing THAT instead and leaving our Rose Bowl alone!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

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STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!