Tradition denied, Utes fall hard in second half at final ‘traditional’ Rose Bowl

PASADENA — Maybe it was the overconfidence that can come with beating the runaway Heisman Trophy winner — twice.

Maybe it was being favored in Vegas and having the wind at their back for a change.

Maybe it was lugging around all that Granddaddy-of-Them-All Rose Bowl tradition.

Whatever it was, the Utah Utes started slow in a Rose Bowl a lot of fashionable people thought they would win, and then went backwards.

After a 14-14 does-anyone-want-this-thing? opening half, the Utes fell hard after intermission, losing 35-21 to the Penn State Nittany Lions, their only second-half score coming with 25 seconds remaining that they used all their timeouts to secure and left everyone wondering why they would want to prolong the game.

The 109th edition of college football’s oldest bowl game was billed as the end to an era, an ode to the good old days. Maybe not back as far as raccoon coats and rumble seats, but at least to when no one knew how to spell NIL and thought transfer portals were something out of Star Trek.

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It would be the last game between the champions of the Pac-12 and the Big Ten conferences, a tradition dating back to World War II that will now give way to the Rose Bowl joining a rotation in the new 12-team national playoff.

And who better to play the role of a solid, honest, working man’s football program to be envied than the Utes — a beat-the-odds kind of school that spent the 2022 season abusing none other than Caleb Williams, the Oklahoma-to-USC NIL/transfer portal poster boy who spent the year losing to nobody not named Utah (well, until the Cotton Bowl).

This is the face of modern college football: When Williams won the Heisman Trophy in December, he wore a gold Gucci suit to the ceremony in New York and flew all eight of his offensive linemen across the country to be with him.

You can do that when your Name, Image and Likeness haul for the year was $2.1 million.

The Utes couldn’t come close to matching that, although quarterback Cam Rising did collect a reported $535,000 in NIL revenue this season to rank 85th among college football players.

But it wasn’t the Utes who got to drop the mic and close the curtain with a win in the last traditional Rose Bowl.

It was the school of Joe Paterno, of Linebacker U., the school with the plainest uniforms this side of an accountant’s office.

At first, it looked like Utah was primed to avenge last year’s 48-45 heartbreaking last-minute loss to Ohio State. Once again, the hordes of Ute faithful descended on southern California, clogging up I-15 before the snows hit and filling up the airports.

Like last year, the school ticket office sold out its first allotment of tickets quickly, got some more from the Rose Bowl, then sold those, dispensing over 30,000 tickets, and that’s not counting sales on StubHub and other secondary outlets.

It’s true, Penn State fans responded much better than Ohio State last year. But still, there was much more red in the stands than blue and white. Rather than Utah having about a 75-25 fan advantage in the cavernous Rose Bowl, this one looked closer to 60-40.

Crowd advantage notwithstanding, when the roof caved in, it caved in quickly. After Penn State took a 21-14 lead early in the third quarter, Rising used his legs in the broken field for a bruising 7-yard run.

The good news: He got the first down. The bad news: He was hurt and had to leave the game.

Backup Bryson Barnes replaced him, as he did in last year’s Rose Bowl. But instead of responding by driving the team to a touchdown, Barnes ran into Linebacker U.

After going nowhere and two Utah punts, Penn State added another touchdown, followed by what should easily pass, considering the circumstances, as the worst Utah offensive series of the season:

Barnes on a keeper loses 3; a Barnes pass to Thomas Yassmin is incomplete; Barnes is sacked for a loss of another three yards; Jack Bouwmeester’s 40-yard punt bounces backwards 12 yards.

Penn State took over on the Utah side of the field and headed to the end zone like it was a ski run.

Five plays later, three of them no-huddle, the score was 35-14, after which the Nittany Lion fans broke into singing their unofficial feel-good theme song, “Sweet Caroline.”

Nothing rubs it in your face quite like Neil Diamond.

And then it started to rain.

Ten and a half minutes remained, but it was over.

Give the Utes credit for not going peacefully into the night. With 2:12 and the use of their three timeouts remaining, Barnes led a 78-yard drive that culminated with a 5-yard pass to Jaylen Dixon with 24 seconds on the clock.

Thus the last touchdown scored in a traditional Rose Bowl came from the Utes.

As the clock struck none, with the mist falling, the stadium emptied quickly, at least on the Ute side of things.

Penn State’s fans were content to stand in the rain and sing along to another school favorite, “Celebration,” a song about as old as “Sweet Caroline.”

Then it was “Sweet Caroline” again.

By this time there was no red to be seen. The Ute faithful were on their way home, wondering two things:

When, and if, they’ll ever get back to Pasadena — which could actually be soon, and often, with the Rose Bowl a part of the College Football Playoff from 2024 forward.

And if Rising will heal up and come back next season for his senior year — or declare for the pros and take a drop in pay.