Utah faces PSU as Rose Bowl era ends
PASADENA, Calif. — The sun usually sets behind Arroyo Seco late in the third quarter of the Rose Bowl. The moment is often spectacular, with clouds turning pink and orange while the San Gabriel Mountains light up in dazzling reds and yellows amid the dying rays.
The sun is also setting on an era of Rose Bowl history Monday when No. 8 Utah (10-3) faces No. 11 Penn State (10-2). This Rose Bowl marks the first meeting between the schools. Utah is the only Pac-12 school the Nittany Lions have never faced. Both programs are repeat visitors to Pasadena, with consistent track records of success under two prominent, respected coaches who never have won the Rose Bowl.
“We’re playing in the last, I guess, traditional Rose Bowl,” Penn State defensive tackle Nick Tarburton said.
The 109th edition of the Granddaddy of Them All is the last that’s guaranteed to feature the game’s time-honored pairing of Pac-12 and Big Ten teams. The game’s status as a College Football Playoff semifinal next season and the expanded playoff in 2024 has put the future in flux for the sport’s oldest active bowl game.
“If indeed this does become the last traditionally slotted Rose Bowl, it’s a great honor to be a part of that, and we want to do it proud,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.
For such a tradition-rich sporting event, this uncertainty is unusual — but not actually unprecedented, as pointed out by Laura Farber, the chair of the Rose Bowl Management Committee. While the Rose Bowl is a national New Year’s Day institution, kicked off by the famed Rose Parade and continuing to the 2 p.m. kickoff that leads to those famous sunsets, the big game has been played on days other than Jan. 1 — including this year because New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday — and featured all sorts of geographical matchups over the decades, particularly in its first half-century of existence when Ivy League squads and Southern powers often made the trip.
“It’s really hard to say what the future holds, because nobody knows,” Farber said. “What’s interesting is learning to balance between tradition and innovation, and being flexible and embracing the changes, because there’s been hyper-speed changes for the past year in college football, the past few years, really. We’ve had to be flexible, yet remind everybody how much this game means to so many people.”