The story of college football in 2020 has been knowing the right thing to do, and completely buckling to do the most idiotic things possible.
The Big Ten wasn’t going to play. Nebraska and others moaned and groaned. The Big Ten played. Coronavirus ran rampant through the conference, which changed its own rules late in the season to allow Ohio State to participate in Saturday’s conference championship game.
The College Football Playoff committee had months to figure out how to conduct its business remotely, and instead insisted on bringing everyone to a Texas resort, every week, to conclude that Alabama is the top team in the country.
The Rose Bowl isn’t allowed to have anyone in attendance for games, not because California is a coronavirus hotspot, but because California is a coronavirus hotspot with people in charge with an iota of sense. The entire country is a coronavirus hotspot, if you haven’t noticed, including Texas. But the CFP semifinal was going to be at the Rose Bowl, and that sparked massive tantrums from Brian Kelly and Dabo Swinney.
Hilariously, Kelly’s Notre Dame team might just have played its way out of Playoff contention with how badly it lost to Swinney’s Clemson on Saturday, but the biggest baby in South Bend got his wish anyway: the Rose Bowl won’t be played at the Rose Bowl.
In a press release, the Tournament of Roses explained, “It is not yet determined if the CFP semifinal in Dallas will be called the CFP Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Capital One. The name is part of the Master License Agreement and is co-owned by the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and the City of Pasadena.”
Actually, that’s a pretty decent path to the final name: The CFP Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, presented by Capital One and Jerry Jones as part of the Master License Agreement, Co-Owned By The Pasadena Tournament of Roses and the City of Pasadena — Pasadena, California, Not Pasadena, Texas.”
This will be the second time the Rose Bowl has been played not at the Rose Bowl. On New Year’s Day in 1942, less than a month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Oregon State beat Duke, 20-16, at the Blue Devils’ stadium in Durham, N.C.
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