News of the Arroyo
Title: | Granddaddy still matters where USC is concerned |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2007-01-02 |
Summary: | January 2, 2007 -- Who needs the NFL! Forget the BCS! The Rose Bowl is the Granddaddy of them all, the pinnacle of college football, as was clear in USC's trouncing of #3 ranked Michigan. |
Author: | Nick Canepa |
Publication: | San Diego Union Tribune |
Content: | Granddaddy still matters where USC is concerned UNION-TRIBUNE January 2, 2007 PASADENA The Rose Bowl is the Rose Bowl, get it? This is not an unwelcome relative. It\'s the Granddaddy. New Year\'s Day in the Arroyo Seco remains college football\'s best time and place, BCS be damned, and may it always be that way. There is no better day in American sports than the first of the year in a glorious, sunny arena whose game hasn\'t been rained on in more than 50 years. So, when the media which should know better, but many times doesn\'t carry on with the notion that neither USC nor Michigan wanted to be here, well, it\'s a ludicrous angle. This is a Rose Bowl, USC Coach Pete Carroll would yelp after his Trojans\' 32-18 thumping of the Wolverines in yesterday\'s 93rd Rose Bowl Game. Gosh, it\'s huge. It\'s a huge win for our program. You guys (we, the media) thought it was hard. Every opportunity that the media could ask these questions, all they could ask about was how hard this was and how are you going to find the motivation. Is this a letdown? . . . all the terrible things leading into this game that you had to ask. We had a fantastic effort. They exploded with their effort . . . that couldn\'t have happened if they were down. That wasn\'t the environment we worked in. Our program knows how to get refocused. USC obviously had the talent to play with Ohio State in next week\'s BCS Championship Game, but had to know it didn\'t belong when it fell flat on its bottom and scored nine points to UCLA\'s 13 in its final regular-season game. Any such thoughts would be delusional. As for Michigan, the Wolverines and their faithful no doubt thought they deserved another shot at the Buckeyes after the Trojans slipped on the Bruin banana peel. But they were beaten 42-39 in their stirring season finale on Nov. 18 probably too long ago and Florida leapfrogged them. And after watching this thing yesterday, the Gators deserve it, because Michigan sure didn\'t and doesn\'t. The Wolverines came to play, because if Florida were to beat Ohio State, and Michigan could have taken USC, it could have laid claim to a share of the mythical national championship (as USC did with LSU in 2003 after beating Michigan here). Michigan had a reason to play hard, and it did. It just wasn\'t good enough. Not close. Which makes one wonder if Ohio State would be good enough. Possibly not. If Troy had taken UCLA, which allowed 44 points in the Emerald Bowl to punchless Florida State, maybe it could have found out. I think it mattered a lot to them, Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, now the loser of four straight bowl games, said of his players. I think they\'re tremendously disappointed, because they wanted to win. And so anybody who thinks this game doesn\'t mean a lot doesn\'t know much about the game. Exactly. But Michigan keeps trying. Dating back to 1902, the Wolverines now have been here on New Year\'s Day 20 times. They\'re 8-12. They often have been good enough to win. Yesterday? No. They did their best to make it interesting. It was 3-3 at the half, and a yawner. But SC, deciding it was time for airborne maneuvers, scored 16 in the third quarter. At one point, Trojans quarterback John David Booty, who had a career day (391 yards, 4 touchdowns), ran 32 plays over five drives without handing off. Tailback U became Pass-and-Catch U, and Dwayne Jarrett, USC\'s All-America receiver and the game\'s offensive MVP, caught 11 of them for 205 yards and two scores. I\'ve been waiting to hear that all year, said Jarrett, a junior who more than likely will announce his intentions to enter the NFL draft within the next two weeks. We just wanted to chuck it. Coach just said we\'re going to chuck it, and we kind of broke their backs a little bit. Well, a lot. The Wolverines couldn\'t stop the pass, even when they knew it was coming, and, even worse, they couldn\'t get anything going offensively until the fourth quarter. USC\'s defense was too fast and much too quick and physical up front, sacking quarterback Chad Henne on six occasions, five times in the first half. Later, Henne basically did a Peyton Manning, hailing a bus and throwing his offensive line under it. We didn\'t have enough time to get at their secondary, he said. We didn\'t handle it. We just didn\'t get it done. Their speed overcame ours. This was the year to get USC, and Oregon State and UCLA did. But don\'t count on it happening much soon. The Trojans had 97 players on their roster, 12 of them seniors. On their 46-player two-deep, there were five seniors. They lose three starters on offense and one on defense. Michigan, meanwhile, had 20 seniors among its 46 and loses 14 starters. Not that Michigan, being Michigan, won\'t replenish. But what Carroll is building rivals anything that\'s been done in college football. USC could beat Ohio State. But it doesn\'t matter now. The Trojans won their 22nd Rose Bowl. Plenty good enough. Other national championships will come. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nick Canepa: (619) 293-1397; nick.canepa@uniontrib.com Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/canepa/20070102-9999-1s2canepa.html |
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