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There’s nothing extra consultant of faculty soccer than the Rose Bowl sport.
In a shape-shifting sport, one persistently rounding right into a junior model of the NFL, the custom of the Rose Bowl is a sacred level of stability. For many years it was a vacation spot versus a whistle cease on the way in which to a nationwide championship.
Why not have a look at this sun-splashed sanctuary the way in which the British Open has St. Andrews within the rotation of programs? Put a nationwide championship right here each 5 years. The Outdated Course is the birthplace of golf, and that is the birthplace of the “bowl” sport, a reference to the form of this very venue.
If the Rose Bowl is a church, then Joel Klatt is a preacher.
“This should be the national championship every single year,” mentioned Klatt, the previous Colorado quarterback turned Fox analyst. “Something that college football is missing that every other sport has is a destination, something that is a culmination of the sport that everybody points to and says, ‘That’s what we want. That’s where we want to go.’ The NFL has the Super Bowl and that can move around.
“But as we morph into the idea of old college football and new college football, trying to find the parts of old college football that can become special in new college football is very important. The Rose Bowl game could be our Super Bowl.”
It felt that means Wednesday, with half the bowl bathed in Oregon inexperienced and half in Ohio State pink. Looming over the stadium’s north rim, the majestic San Gabriel mountains.
Ohio State receiver Emeka Egbuka catches a landing cross in opposition to Oregon in the course of the Faculty Soccer Playoff on the Rose Bowl Wednesday.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Occasions)
“You don’t get this anywhere,” mentioned legendary Ohio State working again Archie Griffin, the one two-time Heisman Trophy winner and somebody who made 4 consecutive journeys to the Rose Bowl from 1972 to 1975.
Wanting right down to the sphere from a set earlier than kickoff, Griffin contemplated making the Rose Bowl an everyday host of nationwide championship video games. He may stay in Ohio, however in a way he’s a year-round resident of this stadium, with a bronze statue of him in entrance.
“Fans would love to come out here,” he mentioned. “I don’t know how you wouldn’t. I’m not sure what’s behind the decision making and how that can happen, but you’ve got to give it very serious consideration.”
Like all the pieces within the sport — from multimillion-dollar NIL offers to the switch portal to the dissolution and reforming of conferences — the Faculty Soccer Playoff is in figure-it-out mode. That is the primary yr of the brand new format, expanded from 4 faculties to 12.
Oregon-Ohio State was a quarterfinal sport, with the semifinals Jan. 9 and 10 on the properties of the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys, and the nationwide championship Jan. 20 on the Atlanta Falcons’ subject.
Sure, some may confer with these because the Orange, Cotton and Peach bowls, however this entire course of has distinct NFL overtones.
It could be the acquainted Buckeyes within the Rose Bowl, however a lot about new school soccer is conserving eyes on the bucks.
All of the extra cause school soccer must honor its previous and lean into what makes it particular.
Klatt is a proponent of beginning the season every week earlier, with the Military-Navy sport. The season would culminate with the championship sport on the Rose Bowl, as an alternative of drifting into January within the shadow of the NFL playoffs.
“Playing a national championship on a Monday night on Jan. 20 is one of the most asinine things I’ve ever seen in my life,” he mentioned. “College football is played on Saturdays or on Jan. 1. That’s something that we can retain as unique and special about our sport.”
As is the case with the game it hosts, the Rose Bowl is evolving. Within the subsequent 5 years, the 102-year-old stadium goes to bear vital alterations meant to enhance fan expertise whereas retaining the venue’s Nationwide Historic Landmark standing. That features making a swanky subject membership behind the south finish zone, the primary ground-level premium seating within the stadium’s historical past.
“I firmly believe that this is the most special sporting event that we have in our country,” Klatt mentioned. “This is the best football venue we have in our country. Why not make it the national championship?”
Like a working again tucking away the soccer, the CFP can carve a brand new path ahead, but it surely ought to put a vice-like grip on what made followers fall in love with the game within the first place.
