After three hours of hair-raising excitement, shocked silence. The Utah quarterback, Southern California's personal Cameron Rising, lay flat on his back, surrounded by means of crew physicians. Heads bowed in every single place the Rose Bowl, where ninety,000 americans draped in varying colours of pink hoped for the younger man's decent fitness and the continuation of their nonstop adrenaline rush.
and by chance it could no longer cease for anything in Pasadena on this primary day of 2022, a day that begun with the voice of school football questioning the very fiber of the avid gamers who like Rising have put their bodies and futures on the line for the final four months.
"I suppose this period of player just doesn't love soccer," Kirk Herbstreit had lamented Saturday morning on ESPN's faculty GameDay, sitting on the same hallowed floor where Ohio State's Kourt Williams would plunge Rising's shoulder and head into the turf with a game-altering sack.
This 108th Rose Bowl had served as a heartfelt response from the Utes of the Pac-12 and the Buckeyes of the large Ten on behalf of their brethren across the country: whats up, we care. An unthinkable kickoff return for a touchdown by Utah's ageless Britain Covey pointed out it. list-setting Rose Bowl performances via Ohio State quarterback CJ Stroud and extensive receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba established it. the guts that would be spilled within the closing moments to return would etch it into stone.
The video game, now tied at 38, may also were an exhibition, however had been confirmed far from meaningless. Rising would walk off the container on his own power, bringing a collective exhale. Ohio State would quickly take its first lead of the game as Stroud, the Rancho Cucamonga product, dropped yet another exact flow into the waiting palms of Smith-Njigba, whose feet by some means did the relaxation, dancing just inner of the fringe of the grass painted snow white for his t hird touchdown.
"The throw and the catch there is probably pretty much as good as I've ever considered in a huge-time spot," Ohio State educate Ryan Day noted.
The ball came lower back to Utah, which trotted out a freshman walk-on named Bryson Barnes for a second sequence in reduction of Rising. He had now not thrown a pass all season, and yet the kid could be asked to fulfill this moment with the sun having already set in the back of the San Gabriels within the "Granddaddy of them all."
Of path Barnes would upward thrust to the event, floating a 15-yard landing circulate to tight conclusion Dalton Kincaid to tie it and tease a rapt college football world with the chance of beyond regular time.
but the exhausted Utes couldn't muster the infrequent defensive stop against Stroud, who would finish the day with 573 passing yards and six touchdowns, and a Rose Bowl basic would end quietly with a chip-shot 19-yard field purpose by Ohio State's Noah Rugg les with 9 seconds left.
No. 6 Ohio State, the team that alum Herbstreit had wondered Saturday morning, outlasted No. 11 Utah forty eight-forty five, coming lower back from 4 14-aspect first-half deficits. The Buckeyes displayed a will befitting of the big Ten's dominant software, finding a way to win regardless of playing without a mentioned 24 scholarship gamers.
"I'm really happy with my guys for staying calm and not in fact panicking, no longer pointing fingers or anything like that," Stroud said. "we all variety of stayed even keel."
Day admitted during the week that the Buckeyes were nevertheless stinging from their 42-27 season-ending defeat to rival Michigan. He would now not exhibit what become talked about at halftime together with his team trailing Utah 35-21.
"I'll leave that for the locker room," Day mentioned. "There's some issues that I likely can't repeat, but that's ok, that's how football goes."
Herbstrei t's critique of the modern faculty soccer player become caused through the choices of a lot of Buckeyes, including superstar vast receivers Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave, to opt out of playing on one of the most nation's most venerable sporting tiers to offer protection to themselves from damage earlier than April's NFL Draft. here is not a brand new style at this factor, however Herbstreit become riled.
"announcing these games have been meaningless, I simply don't take into account," Herbstreit pointed out. "if you don't make it to the playoff, how is it meaningless to play football and compete? Isn't that what we do as football gamers? We compete. I don't recognize if changing or increasing [the playoff] is going to exchange anything else. I in reality don't."
Utah quarterback Cameron Rising sprints previous the Ohio State protection to rating a landing on fourth down within the 2nd quarter.
(Wally Skalij / l. a. times)
Herbstreit struck a chord with on-set colleague Desmond Howard.
"That's what I'm about to assert," agreed Howard, the 1991 Heisman Trophy winner at Michigan who himself starred within the Rose Bowl. "We're coping with a very distinctive mentality. … they've a sense of entitlement. If we're now not going to the one that concerns, it just doesn't have as a lot value to them as it did for us turning out to be up."
in this approach, no bowl has misplaced extra within the four-team playoff period than the Rose, which has needed to robotically combat to maintain its region in the recreation's hierarchy. Most years, as a minimum some of the huge Ten or Pac-12 champions are within the playoff, which skill the online game can feel extra like a consolation prize for a team that had desires of a countrywide championship.
That become the location Ohio State found itself after dropping to Michigan for the first time in a decade. Olave, a Mission Hills pr oduct, had back for his senior season with the intention of winning the massive prize, passing up a 12 months of an NFL earnings. That turned into all misplaced on Nov. 27 in Ann Arbor. Olave's determination to sit out the Rose Bowl turned into hardly controversial.
And, if Olave and Wilson hadn't sat, the tens of millions gazing at home would have been disadvantaged of Smith-Njigba's virtuoso efficiency, as the sophomore set a new all-time checklist for receiving yards in a bowl game with 347 unfold over 15 catches.
Herbstreit became on the color commentary for ESPN's broadcast and spent the whole 2d half sounding amazed at the effort he turned into watching. maybe these days's player isn't so different, after all?
"this is the Rose Bowl, man," Stroud mentioned. "this is the place the legendary video games are being performed. if you aren't stimulated to play, I query your love of the video game."
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