Jensen: Rose Bowl is place to be for Penn State
LOS ANGELES - The sun came out Sunday, two days of rain and heavy cloud cover moving off, mountains finally appearing outside the city. If that holds, Penn Staters will get one of the most spectacular views in sports Monday afternoon, when they gather down in the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, get inside the Rose Bowl itself, and watch their Nittany Lions take on Southern California, with the San Gabriel Mountains practically as close as the goalposts.
LOS ANGELES - The sun came out Sunday, two days of rain and heavy cloud cover moving off, mountains finally appearing outside the city. If that holds, Penn Staters will get one of the most spectacular views in sports Monday afternoon, when they gather down in the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, get inside the Rose Bowl itself, and watch their Nittany Lions take on Southern California, with the San Gabriel Mountains practically as close as the goalposts.
Nothing against the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, but the Penn Staters are lucky to be here.
Lucky both in the sense that the Rose Bowl remains a signature sporting event and that alternative scenarios actually held worse possibilities, regardless of view.
Many Penn Staters believe the Nittany Lions earned the right to play for the national title after winning the Big Ten. They now get to take that view to the grave given the way the semifinals played out, since the two schools chosen "instead" of Penn State - Ohio State and Washington - were barely token opposition for Clemson and Alabama.
Results shouldn't impact your view of selections retroactively. Except the selection committee's justification for leaving the Big Ten champions out of the playoff was that they were picking the best teams. Easy to say: Were they really?
Saturday, a Nits fan walked up to a television screen when it was 24-7, 'Bama over Washington, and said, "I'm shocked - shocked."
Washington, which didn't beat USC at home in November, didn't so much look overmatched against Alabama. 'Bama just looked like 'Bama.
Ohio State, on the other hand, looked overmatched against Clemson.
Now, the smart folks in Vegas would tell you Penn State wouldn't have had a better shot at the Crimson Tide, so while it's nice to go on about how if you're a competitor you want to compete for that title, it's also true that playing Alabama and losing, even a more competitive loss, is worth less than winning the Rose Bowl. Period. Call it a timid mentality all you want, I call it an accurate analysis of risk/reward.
The polls should reflect it. Beat USC and the Nittany Lions should finish as the third-ranked team in the nation. An amazing season is forever stamped that way. Start with two wins and two losses in September - what are the odds of reaching third-ranked at the end? It's no wonder Penn State folks don't care about odds right now. The Vegas boys might have had to make you a partner if you'd actually made that bet.
Obviously, USC stands in the way of this, and USC is legit, riding a winning streak that is only one game short of Penn State's nine-game run. Two schools that combined for 17-0 in October, November, and December. One gets to add January.
USC, which lost three out of four to start the season so never got in the playoff talk, probably already knows this is a great spot. The Trojans played Alabama to open the season and the Crimson Tide offered 52 reasons they were better, with USC managing only 6 in rebuttal.
Saturday morning, I asked Penn State coach James Franklin, who had been talking about his schedule, whether there were even five minutes in there to watch Saturday's games. I asked what his interest level was - zero or somewhat above that?
Franklin fully answered the question. The former Neshaminy High quarterback also easily sidestepped the intent of it. He's gotten a chance to watch games in rare down times, he said. "I'm constantly looking for things that I see in games that I think are lessons that our players can learn from. Have our video guy cut those things out, and we show it in our team meetings the next day."
As for specifically watching those playoff games, Franklin answered that emphatically when he tweeted at 7:07 p.m. Pacific time, "#USC #USC." Actually, he tweeted #USC 22 times, as many as he could fit in the tweet and also add the words, "Control the controllables!"
That's been Franklin's message on playoff/bowl questions throughout. It also was funny, since the Buckeyes were just finishing getting their butts kicked in Phoenix when Franklin sent it out. Oh yes, he was watching.
That also meant Franklin probably caught Urban Meyer's face after Ohio State's beat-down, a clear signal how just getting into a playoff doesn't do much for you if it ends the way it did for the Buckeyes.
That stricken Urban look also should tell all the Nits fans they're in a better place out here, once the sun appeared over the mountains.
@jensenoffcampus