The Blue Board

It should be permanently relocated to Durham, North Carolina. Never know when there'll be another bombing from the orient.

You can't move the Rose bowl, because it's the Rose Bowl. The game is different today, but back in the day going to a bowl game, it was simply a pleasure to get away from the cold, and go to warm, sunny place to have a week of events and fun, and end it with a Bowl game against a great team. These games were rewards for a great season, and nothing really more than that. Nowadays, people put so much emphasis on them (at least among the fan bases), and all this conference supremacy BS, it matters a great deal if you win these games, and suddenly WHERE it's being played matters. A traveling team is always at a bit of a disadvantage simply because of the time change, weather change, and most importantly - the facilities changes.

But I would never move the Rose Bowl. My only complaint is that the Pac-12 is douchy with it. When we played in 08, they wouldn't let us use the UCLA facilities even though we had it pre-arranged with them, and as a result we were trucking about an hour or more each away to practice from our hotel, which pissed Joe off a great deal, because we had to cut out entire practices simply because of the commute. It was just a hassle.

As for the game itself, USC had about a 60-40 advantage in fans, but that didn't matter in the least. We were louder than them anyways, but having that kind of split means it's a mostly neutral crowd. It's the stuff that surrounds the game where it matters, and the host conference can do a lot to nullify the effects for the traveling team - if they care to.

It's beyond worth it to make it out as a fan. We got drubbed in 08, but that was still a pretty special memory for me. There's no other setting like the Rose Bowl. You can't get more college football, than Jan 1 in Pasedena.

We B10 fans gripe all the time about having to play bowl games as away games. Except for USC and UCLA, though, the Rose Bowl is not exactly a home game for most P12 teams. And, after all, it's the Rose Bowl and we get to spend the holidays in sunny SoCal. It's sort of a trade off.

I also think that B10 fans see the current debate over home site semi finals as a chance to partly even what has been an uneven playing field for decades The national championship games will likely still be held mostly in the South and West. So will all the major traditional bowls. But it would be nice to have an occasional game on our home turf, too. This is a perfect opportunity to allow for that.

It didn't look too good in sunny Florida the last few times though either.

Bowl games used to be played up North more often. The Liberty Bowl used to rotate from Memphis to Philly, but moved permanantly to Memphis due to lack of interest.

There's nothing stopping more bowls being in the North. Cities just have to get behind them.

To your point about OOC in week 10: It's the B1G that made the schedule where all B1G teams played their OOC games the first 4 weeks and left the remaining 9 weeks for conference play. That's not our fault. We used to play Penn St in mid to late October sometimes.

I've sat through many a nasty fall weather game...they suck. I mean, sure it's probably an advantage for the home team, but for the fan attending the game...they suck. I still remember the White out we had a couple years ago against Iowa, and the weather randomly sucked in early October. About 45 degrees and a whipping rain...and most of us prepped for a usual early fall game. Horrible, and I wanted to punch everyone in the face that complained the crowd was unusually quite on TV.

It's not a rule, but the B1G does not schedule games in the first 4 weeks. Don't know what year that started, but to play an OOC game later a B1G team would have to take their bye week in the first 4 weeks.

Interesting. Your post makes sense because Northwestern took its bye in week 4. I've never heard of that before.

Great point, as an OSU fan I have some of the same concerns. Don't be surprised to see a lot more power football then you may be thinking from Urban and CO. He seems to be favoring the bigger backs in Spring Ball.

I honestly thought hubris would be a problem with Urban Meyer. He's never used big backs before (well, not including Tim Tebow), and that's a problem in the big 10. If he is, then that's something that surprises me, and a positive for OSU.

hahaha that thing was hilarious. I don't even know where they keep that thing, I was actually referring to the Big 10 trophy. It kind of sucks you don't get to win that in front of a home crowd any more.