NO DEBATE ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THIS GAME.Byline: STEVE DILBECK Greatest Rose Bowl matchup ever. We get so excited. We hype and magnify mag·ni·fy v. To increase the apparent size of, especially with a lens. and blow up everything to cosmic proportions. People do it, fans do it. The media certainly does. It's too easily the biggest and greatest game, team, series, moment in the history of sports. Yet we repeat: Greatest Rose Bowl matchup ever. Find the perspective where you will. Argue, and understandably, otherwise all you like. Yet the numbers alone make it difficult to dispute that USC-Texas offers the finest matchup in the 92-year history of the Rose Bowl game. If it lacks the certain warmth of a familiar old comforter because it's missing the traditional Pac 10-Big Ten matchup, it nonetheless stands on its own merits. Consider: --It is for the national championship. AP, BCS (1) (The British Computer Society, Swindon, Wiltshire, England, www.bcs.org) The chartered body for information technology professionals in the U.K., founded in 1957. , USA Today/coaches, Football Writers of America Association, your home computer - whatever the preferred ranking system - are all expected to anoint a·noint tr.v. a·noint·ed, a·noint·ing, a·noints 1. To apply oil, ointment, or a similar substance to. 2. To put oil on during a religious ceremony as a sign of sanctification or consecration. 3. the winner of today's Rose Bowl as national champion. No disputes, no alphabet jumble, no computer wackiness. Just one consensus national champ. The Rose Bowl has produced six AP national champions in its history, but three times the coaches broke and gave their award to a different team. --This is the first time since 1931 both teams entered the Rose Bowl unbeaten and untied, and only the fifth ever. Even in some of the most memorable and historic matchups, at least one team entered with a tie or single loss. --It is just the third time that teams ranked first and second by the AP have met in a Rose Bowl showdown. USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. has been ranked No. 1 and Texas No. 2 all season. It's the matchup everyone has wanted since before the season even began. Only twice before have the AP's No. 1 and No. 2 teams met in the Rose Bowl game: No. 1 Ohio State defeated No. 2 USC 27-16 in the 1969 game, and No. 1 USC defeated No. 2 Wisconsin 42-37 in 1963. No. 1 Miami defeated Nebraska - which had just come off a bad loss to Colorado - in a BCS mess of a 2002 Rose Bowl, but the Huskers were ranked only fourth by AP. --The two teams carry the nation's longest winning streaks. Texas has won an impressive 19 consecutive games. It is the second-longest streak (30) in Longhorn The code name for the Windows Vista operating system. After the client version was renamed "Vista" in 2005, Longhorn referred to the server version until it was officially named Windows Server 2008 in May of 2007. See Windows Vista. history. USC has won 34 consecutive games, tied for sixth most in NCAA history The first game (basketball) played between teams representing different colleges or universities was played on November 6 1869 between Rutgers University and Princeton University, at College Field (now the site of the College Avenue Gymnasium), New Brunswick, New Jersey. . --These aren't some Johnny Come Lately JCL[1] is the name given to the new fans of Portsmouth F.C.[2] who have become regular attendees[3] since promotion to the Premier League[4] by their more long standing counterparts. football powers, but two of the most storied programs in college history. USC is trying to claim its 12th national title, Texas its fourth. The Trojans have had seven Heisman Trophy Heisman Trophy Annual award given to the outstanding college gridiron football player in the U.S. The trophy was instituted in 1935 by New York City's Downtown Athletic Club and was officially named the following year for the club's first athletic director, the player-coach winners, the Longhorns two. The schools have produced legendary coaches - Howard Jones Howard Jones is the name of:
Royal has a middle initial but no middle name. , and now Pete Carroll Peter C. Carroll (born September 15, 1951, in San Francisco, California) is the current head coach of the University of Southern California Trojans football team, having held that position since 2001. and Mack Brown. --The stars are here. The two most exciting college players in the country this year have been USC tailback Reggie Bush and Texas quarterback Vince Young. They do not allow you to take your eyes from the field. For the first time in the Rose Bowl, there will be two Heisman winners - Bush and USC quarterback Matt Leinart - on the field at the same time; last year's BCS title game at the Orange Bowl featured Heisman winners Leinart and Oklahoma's Jason White. Young was the Heisman runner-up to Bush this year. Texas also brings strong safety Michael Huff as the Jim Thorpe winner as the nation's top defensive back, and defensive tackle Rodrique Wright as a Lombardi Award finalist as the top lineman. Add to all of that two schools averaging over 50 points per game, that have won the last two Rose Bowls, and you have an historic matchup. `` This is arguably the greatest Rose Bowl ever,'' said Paul McDonald, who quarterbacked No. 3 USC to a memorable 17-16 Rose Bowl victory over No. 1 Ohio State in 1980 and is now a team broadcaster. ``There's a lot going on. This is an historic game, especially if the Trojans can win. They'll be the first team to win three consecutive AP national titles. Plus, I think it will be a heckuva heck·uv·a adj. Slang Used as an intensive: You've done a heckuva good job. [Alteration of heck of a.] game.'' Maybe, but a great matchup is no guarantee of a great game. USC could prove unstoppable. Texas could prove too quick. Even more of an upset, the game could prove to be less than entertaining. Or it could prove to be a classic, like the 2002 title game between Miami and Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. All the ingredients are here. More ingredients than most would have dared to imagine. More than have ever met at the Rose Bowl. ``It's going to go down as one of the best games ever,'' said ex-USC tailback Anthony Davis. The answer to that can be debated at the end of tonight's Rose Bowl contest. But heading into the much anticipated kickoff, it is clear: Greatest Rose Bowl matchup ever. CAPTION(S): 2 photos MEMO} BCS CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: NO. 1 USC VS. NO. 2 TEXAS 2006 ROSE BOWL, Today, 5 p.m., Ch. 7, 710-AM, 1540-AM Steve Dilbeck's column appears in the Daily News four times a week. He can be reached at stephen.dilbeck(at)dailynews.com. Photo: (1 -- 2) According to Steve Dilbeck, this year's BCS Championship Game should be a classic, like the 2003 Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Miami (above), instead of a dud, like the 2002 Rose Bowl between Miami and Nebraska (below). Photos by Getty Images |
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