Since the final whistle of Penn State's conference-crown clinching win over Michigan State, the Lions have been quiet, but the college football world around them has been anything but. The dizzying scenario we laid out a few weeks ago to try and launch Penn State back into the national title hunt has dissolved, and Lions fans can fix their gaze firmly to the West and Pasadena, Ca.
As late as last Saturday, it looked as if Penn State's opponent in its third Rose Bowl ever would be the Oregon State Beavers, a rematch of the two teams' September 5th meeting. A humbling defeat at home to arch-rival Oregon ended the Beavers' rosy dreams and elevated the mighty USC Trojans to first place in the Pac-10 and the automatic berth to the "Grand-Daddy of Them All."
There will be plenty of time to break down that likely Jan. 1 matchup, but suffice it to say that it is sure to be one of the most eagerly anticipated bowl games of the last two decades for Penn State.
However, right now I want to draw some attention to Pete Carroll's recent decision to wear the Trojans' cardinal jerseys on the road this week at the Rose Bowl against cross-town rival UCLA. For those of you who are new to this whole uniform thing, only one team in major college football wears white at home, the LSU Tigers. If you're not the Bayou Bengals, you wear your dark unis at home and your white unis on the road.
Apparently, Carroll has forgetten this trend and plans on forfeiting up to two timeouts (one at the beginning of each half) to be able to make his fashion statement. Carroll has since said that he's making the move to restore a tradition that hasn't been in effect since 1982, when both the Bruins and Trojans would wear their home colors when they played each other.
Make no mistake about it, The Floating Lion can see through the lip-service, and this is a definite message being sent by Carroll in response to a full-page ad taken out by first-year UCLA coach, Rick Neuheisel, in the LA Times before the season started.
This is Carroll's way of saying that he and his Trojans own the City of Angels and the stadium that the Bruins call home. His team has been pretty outspoken already about not being thrilled to be playing in its fourth straight Rose Bowl and third straight bowl game against a Big Ten team (Michigan, Illinois, Penn State). Perhaps Pete is also playing a little psychological warfare with the Lions, marking his territory in Pasadena before Penn State arrives in town.
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