Maybe the best Rose Bowl game ever

PASADENA, Calif. — It wasn’t for the national championship, but that’s the only thing this football game on the first day of January 2022 wasn’t.

They’ve said the one in 2006, when Texas came back to beat USC, was the greatest Rose Bowl ever, and the most exciting. We’ll amend that contention.

The way a redshirt first-year quarterback from Ohio State amended the school’s and the game’s passing records.

C.J. Stroud grew up in Rancho Cucamonga, about 30 miles east of the Rose Bowl stadium itself, so maybe it was appropriate he would help lead the Buckeyes to a last-second win over Utah, 48-45.

The winning field goal from 19 yards with nine seconds remaining was by Noah Ruggles, but those were merely — merely? — the ultimate points in what had to be one of college football’s ultimate games.

It was a game that dragged before it erupted. Five touchdowns were scored in a three-minute stretch in the second quarter, Stroud responsible for six overall as he threw for 573 yards.

Never mind why Stroud left California, but a year ago as a freshman at Ohio State he never threw a pass, waiting behind Justin Fields, who of course was the No. 1 pick by the Chicago Bears in last year’s draft.

To recycle the line used about winning college football programs, the Buckeyes don’t rebuild, they reload.

But for the first time in eight years, they lost to Michigan in the annual matchup, which is why Ohio State was in the Rose Bowl while Michigan was in the playoffs getting pounded by Georgia.

Be assured, with Stroud back another couple of years, that won’t happen in the immediate future.

On the receiving end of Stroud’s passes were Jaxon Smith-Nigba, with 15 catches for 347 yards and three touchdowns, and Marvin Harrison Jr., the son of a onetime NFL star, with 8 catches for 32 yards and three touchdowns.

How times have changed. Ohio State, where the offense 60 years ago was often described as “three yards and a cloud of dust,” on this New Year’s afternoon ran for 110 yards but passed for almost 600.

Stroud said of his link with Smith-Nigba, “We came in together as freshmen. But me and him doesn’t have a good game without our offensive line. Our backs ran well. Our tight ends blocked well. When you get that combination, you get going.”

Stroud, who also was a fine basketball player in high school, has made it a habit of looking for Harrison. “I call him ‘route man,’” said Stroud. “His routes are amazing, especially against a good corner.”

This Rose Bowl was amazing. Utah was all over the field, but after leading through three quarters, the Utes couldn’t close.

“I’m sure the fans and the networks got their money’s worth out of this one,” said Kyle Whittingham, the Utah coach. “Our guys got nothing to hang their heads about.”

Ohio State has played in numerous Rose Bowls. This was the first for Utah.

“It was a heck of a football game,” said Whittingham.

That it was.

Woody and a Rose Bowl in the rain

PASADENA, Calif. — You know the song: “It Never Rains in Southern California — It Pours.” Written by a guy named Albert Hammond about not being able to find work in the movie business.

Could have been about the 1955 Rose Bowl game.

No question, the weather this time of year in SoCal is spectacular. For the most part, it’s blue skies. Chamber of Commerce stuff.

But as the lyrics of another song go, into each life (and region) some rain must fall — the “region” line is my own personal addition, because it was raining here on Thursday as far as the eye could see.

That was also the case more than 60 years ago for the event with the copyrighted nickname, “Grandaddy of Them All.”

The label was created by the good people around here because they believed the Rose Bowl, in a way responsible for the multitude of postseason college football matchups, was being pushed out of the headlines by lesser games.

But on that New Year’s Day, that afternoon in ’55, the Rose Bowl received attention it never wanted.

For the first time since 1934 and the last time ever — not counting some fourth-quarter heavy mist in 1996 — it rained on the Rose Bowl.

What a literal mess on the field. What a virtual stink caused by Woody Hayes.

He was a grumpy, demanding, un-merry old soul who coached Ohio State — which, interestingly enough, will play Utah on Saturday in the 2022 Rose Bowl.

In ’55 Hayes and Ohio State would beat USC, 20-7, but Woody was displeased because the Trojan band had been allowed to march at halftime on turf already soggy, thereby transforming the Buckeye attack to three yards and a clod of mud.

That was only one of the controversies for what, you should excuse the term, became a quagmire of a game.

USC shouldn’t even have played. UCLA not only was the No. 1 team in the land in the UPI poll but also the undefeated champion of the Pacific Coast Conference, from which the West Coast team in the Bowl normally would be chosen.

But the PCC had a no-repeat rule. UCLA had played (and lost to) Michigan State in the 1954 Rose Bowl. Thus USC got the call.

That game was our first formal introduction to Woody, who the late Jim Murray once said was graceless in victory, graceless in defeat. Hayes once punched Los Angeles Times photographer Art Rogers when Rogers, doing his job, aimed a camera at Hayes.

My job at the Rose Bowl, before I became a journalist, was to peddle programs. The first Rose Bowl game I worked, 1954, I ended up with $10 and, because the goal posts were made of wood and people could swarm the field, a few memorable slivers. I was in high school and thrilled.

But one year later, everything was different. Before that 1955 game, the heavens opened up around 10:30 in the morning. I was unprepared. So was everyone else.

The usual 100,000 tickets had been sold (at $15 each, if I recall), but attendance was around 89,000. As I slogged through the stadium trying to sell before the game started, a spectator stopped me and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket for 25 cents. No thanks.

I was wearing one of those high school letterman-type jackets, blue with fake leather sleeves over a required white dress shirt.

By the time I left, the shirt was blue from the jacket color leaking. I had earned $1.25. Happy New Year. Glub.

RealClearSports: Memorial Golf Uplifting in Columbus Gloom

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- This is football country. This is disgraced-school country after what has happened to Ohio State -- the cover-up and the needed departure of coach Jim Tressel.

For a few days, happily, this is also golf country. The Buckeyes matter, but for the rest of a difficult week, they aren't the only game in town. Fore!

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

RealClearSports: Terrelle Pryor Proves He's a Quarterback

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

PASADENA -­- Isn't this what he was supposed to do? Wasn't Terrelle Pryor rated the best prep football player in the land a couple of seasons ago? Didn't everyone contend when Ohio State picked up Pryor it picked up a national championship? Or at the least a BCS bowl game win?

It hadn't worked that way. Until Friday night. Until the first evening of 2010.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010