Rose Bowl Reportedly Preparing To Make Another Unpopular Decision

Rose Bowl logo

Getty Image / Harry How


The Rose Bowl is not particularly popular among college football fans right now.

The bowl game has recently made headlines because of reports that it is the only thing preventing fans from getting to see the College Football Playoff sooner. According to those reports, the Rose Bowl wants a guarantee that it will get to play on their yearly game on New Year’s Day.

The College Football Playoff committee doesn’t want to give them that and set a deadline for them to decide whether they want to be a part of the Playoff going forward if they can’t get it.

Now it seems that they are going to make another decision that could be unpopular with fans.

With the Rose Bowl not slated to take place in the Playoff this season, they should get their usual matchup between the Big 10 Champion and the PAC-12 champion. With both of those teams likely to end up in the Playoff, they would then be expected to move on to the 2nd place team in each conference.

That should make Ohio State the representative for the Big 10. It seems the Rose Bowl has other ideas.

According to a report from The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel, they would actually pass over the Buckeyes and pick Penn State instead because Ohio State just played in the game last year.

This decision would likely move Ohio State to the Orange Bowl, which would bump Tennessee out of that game and into the Cotton Bowl.

Tennessee fans definitely won’t be happy about that and college football fans in general won’t be happy to see a bowl game messing with the matchups they expect.