A Rose in any other domain

First off this morning, a word: Balderdash.

As in, "Balderdash, Notre Dame is not going to boycott the College Football Playoff, no matter what Brian Kelly said the other day."

Notre Dame is not going to do that because there's too much money at stake, and money drives big-boy college athletics as surely as it does any other corporate enterprise. And that's what big-boy college athletics are, and you've all heard the Blob carry that tune before.

At any rate, Kelly's boycott threat is as hollow as a decorative gourd, and even he knows it. What isn't hollow is why he issued that threat.

He issued it because the Rose Bowl is one of the CFP semifinal games, and the Rose Bowl is in Pasadena, Calif., And California right now is in major lockdown mode because the Bastard Plague is having a merry old time there. And so the Los Angeles County health director has issued a stay-at-home order and decreed that all sporting events, college, pro and otherwise, will be spectator-free.

This means if they play the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, no one can come watch in person. And that includes the parents and families of the players involved.

This has Kelly sorely miffed, and good on him for it. 

"Why would we play if we can't have families at the game?" he said on a Zoom call previewing the ACC title game the other day. "What's the sense of playing a game in an area of the country where nobody can be part of it?"

These are excellent questions, and especially the second one. If you're going to stage your big-deal playoff games in spite of a national pandemic -- probably not a wise move to begin with -- why do it where the pandemic is the most pandemic-y? And if it's not safe in Pasadena for the parents and families of the players to be there, how is it safe for the players?

Look. We all get it. The Rose Bowl is the grand-daddy of bowl games and Pasadena builds its whole identity around it, what with the grand-daddy thing and the Kilgore Rangerettes and the President's Float, and look-the-sun-is-shining-on-the-San-Gabriel-Mountains-again. But weird times call for weird measures, and these are definitely weird times.

So why not just move the Rose Bowl out of Cali for this year? Why not play it in a less diseased location?

Sure, I get it, it's sacrilege and there is money involved again (Excuse me: MONEY, DAMMIT!), and besides, WHAT ABOUT TRADITION? And so the CFP people refuse to move the game, no matter how much sense it would make.

Well, listen. The Blob gets the money angle, but as for tradition, what about it? The bowl people threw tradition over the side years ago. When was the last time the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton all played on New Year's Day? When was the last time the Cotton was even considered one of the Big Four (or Five, counting the Fiesta)? And if the Rose Bowl is so hot for tradition, how come Georgia played Oklahoma in it three years ago? 

Or Florida State one year? Or TCU another? Or Texas or Miami or Nebraska, for pity's sake?

No, sir. Tradition caught a train out of town a long time ago. The Rose Bowl is no longer solely the Big Ten vs. the Pac-12 anymore. It's no longer Michigan-USC or Ohio State-USC or Wisconsin-USC, and hasn't been for years.

So what's the big deal here? They could play the Rose Bowl on Mars for all tradition matters anymore. So if there are contractual matters to hash out, get the lawyers in a room somewhere and hash 'em out. And move the damn game to some less-toxic place where the players are safer and their families can safely attend.

"Maybe they need to spend a little less time on who the top four teams are and figure out how to get the parents into these games because it is an absolute shame and a sham if parents can't be watching their kids play," Kelly said.

Indeed.