Sunday, December 02, 2007

Stop...AND SMELL THE ROSES, BABY!!

WE'RE GOING TO THE ROSE BOWL, BABY!!

Illinois needed a lot of help to get to smell the roses, and they got all of it during yesterday's choke-o-rama choke-fest.

#1 Missouri and #2 West Virginia would control their National Championship destiny with wins. Choke. Choke. Both lost and made a mess of the BCS. Ohio State and LSU backed into the title game with LSU leap-frogging unbeaten Hawaii and one-loss Kansas. I frickin' hate the BCS. Let the teams decide their fate on the field.

I'll take it easy on #11 Boston College and #14 Tennessee as they were underdogs against #6 Virginia Tech and #7 LSU. Choke is too strong of a word. They both lost and Illinois climbed a couple more spots in the BCS standings to #13, and a Rose Bowl date vs. #7 USC.

Yesterday, one of my co-workers asked me if I'd rather Illinois go to the Rose Bowl and get crushed by USC or go to the Capital One Bowl and beat Florida. Basically, he was asking me if I'd rather win a bowl game against a "lesser" team or lose one to a "better" team. I told him I didn't see it that way. I'm not trying to knock Florida because they're a great team, the defending National Champs, but USC is the premiere program in the country and I'd like to see Illinois take a shot at them. It would further strengthen our football program and Ron Zook's already stellar recruiting if we could come away from Pasadena with a win.

New Year's Day, baby...I'll try not to get too liquored up.

And I'll stop saying "baby"...sorry about that.

3 comments:

natlparkfan said...

I'm donning my obnoxious orange Illini gear to wear to work tomorrow! Should be good to incite a few comments here in bandwagon-jumping 'SC land. Don't get me started on how many people were driving around flying USC flags on their cars (especially a few years ago) -- they're not quite as rabid now that 'SC has lost a few.

Pasadena is less than an hour away -- hmmm....

batteredham said...

You guys should definitely go! I checked out ticket availability, but they don't go on sale through sTicket Master until Tuesday morning. We'll see whether or not I'll need to pawn one of the girls to go. ;)

And have fun tomorrow in your Illini orange!

natlparkfan said...

A co-worker of mine went a couple of years ago when Nebraska played in the Rose Bowl. (Her husband is from Omaha.) Anyway, they dropped $500 each for tickets. Too steep for our budget!