My Sweet Rose

Alright, I had some things to say yesterday and didn't comment on the Rose Bowl, so today is the day. Not all of my commentary about the game is football talk, so if you don't care about sports, just scan over the football stuff. Since most of you know that I'm a negative guy, I'm going to approach my Rose Bowl commentary in the following way:
Top 10 Things I Hated about the Rose Bowl:

10) Keith Jackson was really bad. Honestly, do you think he woke up this morning and felt good about that performance last night? His voice and diction are fading fast, but he did pull it together a little for this one; you could barely understand him in some of his other recent performances. Also, he clearly didn't know much about either team beyond the big name starters. A couple of times he made comments about guys that even I knew weren't very accurate, and I don't follow either team. He also clearly has this "I'm the man, so I can say things other guys would never get away with" attitude. He was very harsh with the referees, which I'm sure made more than one network exec for ABC/ESPN squirm a little. Then, toward the end of the game, he just starts trying to dictate what we should believe like he is Moses coming down from the mountain or something. He thinks that because he has seen a million games in his life, he can tell us to believe that this is the greatest college football game ever (it clearly isn't and I'll get to that) or that V Young put in the greatest performance in college history (he didn't, not even close). Poor KJ. His "retirement" never should have ended. I honestly feel bad for the guy. Why can't people go away gracefully anymore?

9) The Rose Bowl is one of the truly great day-game stadiums left in the world. It loses a lot of charm at night. Why not do the national championship game on saturday or sunday afternoon like the super bowl?

8) I'm sick of hearing about the 2-time national championship thing. People forget that USC wasn't the BCS championship winner 2 years ago. That year, one poll essentially broke away from the BCS and declared USC their champion. Its ironic that, to make the BCS championship more important this year, they were telling people the 2004 game didn't matter.

7) This is more of a BCS thing, than strictly a championship game thing, but where were the bowl games on New Year's Day this year? None of the big BCS bowls are on that day any more. Plus, many of the other bowls were on Jan 2 for some reason this year, which meant that I saw about 3 bowl games this year. You see, myself and 4 other people in the country had to work on monday, Jan 2. Plus, I have become so adept at watching football while nursing a hangover, that it has become almost an essential part of the process.

6) Not enough shots of those Texas cheerleaders in chaps! Did you see that? I couldn't believe that? I felt like I was watching Striptease or Showgirls. Their mothers must be proud. Probably the only time these girls will ever be on national TV, unless their mobile home park floods, and these girls are dressed like the dirtiest sluts in the world. Someone at Texas needs to be fired for that one.

5) I kept thinking about all the terrible behavior I saw from USC fans when I went to the coliseum for the fresno state game. I didn't really root for either team, but I went to see an interesting game since I grew up in fresno and got free tickets from my father-in-law. USC fans were out of control. So what? Aren't most college football fans insane? Well, I have two problems with this.
-One, the Pac 10 has NO alcohol sales at their games. That’s right, no beer. So, either, you can't blame the bad behavior on brews, or you have to think seriously about not letting people in from tailgate parties who are clearly smashed out of their mind. In any other social setting, these guys would get pinched the minute they ran across a boy in blue. But at college football games, 15 po-po walk by these guys every half hour and do nothing. Meanwhile, 30% of the fans in the stadium are drunken idiots looking for any excuse to fight.
-Two, USC were two time national champions, with a 30+ game win streak. Fresno st. was, well, themselves. If my alma mater was USC, I would like to think that I would have some class and dignity. What do I have to get worked-up about? My school is great, wins all the time, 2 championships in a row, I can just sit back and bask in the success and wait for the outcome. If we lose, oh well, it was a good run. If we win, ok, we should win. USC fans clearly don't see things that way though. When they were losing, they flung verbal assaults on Fresno State fans as if it would put more points on the board for their team. When they finally won, they acted as if they were the underdogs who had just beaten the greatest team in the history of world. Don't act like you just cured cancer, act like you just escaped losing to a team you should have beaten by at least 21 pts. Every SC fan should have hung their head in shame and left the stadium feeling lucky to have their streak for another week after that one. I have heard that USC is a great school, but I seriously question the intelligence of the alumni after that experience.

4) Not enough LeAnn Rimes! I don't know why, but I have secret love for her. I think its idea that she could sing to me whenever I wanted. I'm not saying that she's any more than modestly attractive, or even close to the best singer. I'm just saying I wouldn't mind seeing more of her. She did a good job with the national anthem, too. A very hard song to do, and almost impossible in a stadium with the sound problems of the Rose Bowl.

3) The 5 pm start time is a little early on the west coast and I bet that cost them some first half ratings points (granted, the actual game didn't start to almost 5:30). There's no reason to not start at 6. Plenty of monday night football games get great east coast ratings with a 6 pm start time. The culture over there is just different when it comes to this stuff. People stay up really late to watch their favorite teams. Plus, no east coast team was playing, so they weren't going to get huge east coast ratings anyway.

2) People keep saying that it was the best game ever. It wasn't even close. The first half was very sloppy, with stupid fumbles and going for it on fourth down for no reason. Pete Carroll blew it with his timeouts in both halves, and did not once ever think about spying V Young. It's so basic. When you have a QB who takes off, at least try keeping a LB home to spy him for a couple plays and see if it works. This game WASN'T two great heavyweights trading blows! It was more like to really fat, old heavyweights flailing at each other and hoping to land a lucky punch that knocks the other guy down.

1) I hate myself for using this stupid Top 10 List to do my Rose Bowl commentary. If I ever wanted to become a writer, it’s over now! Seriously, I must have thought to myself, "I'll use the most trite and simple format I can think of today." Plus, I think I owe David Letterman like $800,000 now. Nice.