Indiana’s Mendoza gets to experience the Rose Bowl with a victory

This is where I came in. A Big Ten football team overwhelming an opponent in the Rose Bowl. However, there is a difference. The Big Ten team doing the overwhelming used to be Ohio State or Michigan, and it would beat up on Cal, Stanford, or even USC.

College football, as everything else in the world, has certainly changed. New Year’s Day this time, it was Indiana, once the doormat, with the big win. And if the Hoosiers’ 38-3 victory in the bowl game, nicknamed the Grandaddy of them all, wasn’t impressive enough, then consider who they beat, Alabama, forever one of the very best in the sport.

Asked what he thought about the rapid and stunning improvement since he took over, going from 3-9 in 2023 to 13-0 this season, Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti said, “It would be a hell of a movie.”

A perfect comment in Pasadena, where the Rose Bowl is located, fewer than ten miles from Hollywood.

The Rose Bowl used to stand alone in its prestige and importance. Now, in the great scheme of college athletics, it’s merely a part of the playoff system.

So the game Thursday was not only the Rose Bowl, it was a quarter-final in the college playoff schedule, and the No. 1-ranked Hoosiers now will play Oregon in a semifinal Saturday night in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

Yes, they met on October 11th, and Indiana won 30-20. The rematch doesn’t figure to be much different. Indiana has an excellent offensive line, perhaps the finest. And quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the Cal transfer, is the Heisman Trophy winner. 

Against Alabama, Mendoza had more touchdown passes (three) than incompletions (two), going 14 for 16 for 192 yards.

“One of the best venues ever,” said Mendoza.

He gets no disagreement from yours truly. I grew up in the LA area and started attending the Rose Bowl game in 1954 as a program salesman. And before calling it quits three years ago, I was at 70 straight games in Pasadena (no, didn’t travel to the Covid game in Dallas). I watched this one and the last two on TV, albeit within punting distance of the competition, because it became too much of an effort to get into the press area of the stadium I love so much.

Maybe this particular game lacked the excitement of several others, UCLA defeating Michigan State in 1966, and most of all Texas overcoming USC 41-38 in the final seconds of  2006. But to me, they are all special.

My alma mater, UCLA, is trying to flee the Rose Bowl to play its games in luxurious and soulless SoFi Stadium in downtown LA. That’s unfortunate. 

There is no place like the Rose Bowl. It hasn’t rained for the game since 1955, although in the fourth quarter in 1996, there was some very heavy mist. 

The place has history, and it has sunset vistas that are unmatched in sports. That ought to be enough to keep the game where it belongs and to keep creating comments like the one from Fernando Mendoza. One of the best venues, indeed.