Don't get me wrong the Rose Bowl is an amazing bowl with great tradition and pageantry. Even as a kid rooting for a Big 8 team in Nebraska I always looked forward to watching the Rose Bowl. In no way was this thread meant to demean the importance of the bowl as a whole.
I just remember rooting for my Huskers to make it to the Orange Bowl not because of the Orange Bowl but because being in that bowl meant we won the conference and if you did that you were competing for National Championships. As time passed and the Big 12 was formed and then the BCS was formed my allegiances changed because the way to win a National Title changed. Instead of rooting for us to go to the Orange Bowl I now was rooting for us to go to the BCS, and early on we did not so much lately.
Moving forward if the way to win a National Championship changes again to a plus 1 format or to a 8 or 16 team playoff then I will again change my goals for each year. Ultimately my goal every year is to compete for National Championships. If that is not your ultimate goal then I guess I don't understand why you play the games anyway. Most teams in division 1 in all honesty really don't have much of a chance at all to really play for or win the National Title but I think you have to start your season wanting to win all the games on your schedule that year and taking it a step further you need to schedule in such a manner that if you go undefeated in that schedule you will be competing for a title. Just a few thoughts.
I get what you're saying and you're right. The National Championship "means more" in the big picture. More national exposure, more money, better recruiting and longer term bragging rights but within the conference, when I go back to my little hometown by the Minnesota border, just getting to the Rose Bowl is pretty close.
Maybe it comes from rooting for a team without a National Championship but I treasure the Rose Bowl, it stands as a powerful foil to the current BCS NC. One game is storied with over a century of history while the other is brand new, poorly contrived and rife with controversy. It just doesn't have the powerful feeling that comes with the Rose Bowl. No roses to pass out at the final game, no special bowl edition beer, no parade of roses...its just some big commercialized wannabe Super Bowl. I'd love to be there but Pasadena is a damn good consolation prize.
I think its something that even the more successful teams can understand because while schools like Nebraska have had great seasons you also know what its like to chase championships year after year, decade after decade with no results..so yea I think its something to which we can all relate. To show what I mean...
(Assuming the AP Rule)
Nebraska went 80 years before its first NC.
Ohio State went 30+ years without one (68-02)
Minnesota's gone 50 years since its last.
Michigan played 70 years before its first, then had a 50 year gap and now its been 14 years.
...and it goes on and on.
So to get all high and mighty in our National Championship Ivory towers is kind of foolish. It's not as if any school has had sustained success with just gobs of NC's every decade since they started playing...we have no blue bloods in that regard.
