Something occurred to me in discussing the 1983 bowls, which I wanted to pull out for a separate post. As I've said, I never much cared about the Rose Bowl. Apparently, a lot of people do. Up until 2001, it had it's great tradition of matching up the Pac-10 and (typically) the Big-10 champion, which by count means 87 games under a glorious system that truly personified what college football was all about. So here's my challenge:
Name 10 really good games.
Walk me down memory lane. Lay out for me the games that objectively were the the clash of titans with nail-biting endings. Not the ones that are remembered for historical reasons - under no circumstances can that 1902 game where Stanford quit in the third quarter be considered good football - and not the ones where a plucky underdog makes it to its first Rose Bowl in however many years only to lose (or win) a mediocre game. Just the days where they played really good football in Pasedena.
Because honestly, I can find much with Google. I mostly geat stuff on the Great Rose Bowl Hoax, or mentions of the recent Texas-USC game. There's this oddly formatted article that goes 10 deep (despite the title), but includes a couple of routs, one game involving Texas, and at least one game where a team came into it with a 7-4 record.
So have at it. Ten games of the like we'll never see again, because the mean ol' BCS came and stole your ball. From memory would be nice, but not required. Enlighten me.