Joel Klatt calls for Rose Bowl to become college football national championship game

Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt called for the Rose Bowl to become college football’s national championship every season.

Back in the BCS era, this was pretty much a reality. Now, the Rose Bowl is a College Football Playoff quarterfinal or semifinal. Even in the four-team playoff, it was a semifinal or a stand alone bowl game between two non-playoff teams.

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So why not have the playoff lead up to the Rose Bowl? The Grandaddy of Them All?

“I would also move the season up towards ending on January 1. Why would I do that? Because there’s one game in college football that stands above all of them, and it’s not the national championship game, in particular, on some dumb Monday night in a dome. I’m talking about the Rose Bowl game,” Klatt said on his podcast. 

“It is the most special sporting event in our country outside of the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl has become almost a de facto national holiday, and we do have a national holiday on January 1, and the Rose Bowl is the preeminent sporting event in our country. So as college football, why don’t we just sit there and do what is so obvious, which is grab that game.” 

Making the Rose Bowl the biggest destination in college football gives all teams a common goal: win the biggest game of the year and be crowned the best in the land.

“The Rose Bowl should unequivocally be the national championship game,” Klatt said. “That setting is magical. It would provide an anchor destination for college football, like the World Series is for Major League Baseball, like the Super Bowl is in the NFL, like the NBA Finals. It would be like, like Omaha, the College World Series in terms of their baseball. It would be the destination. We would no longer be trying to win a national championship. We would be trying to win the Rose Bowl. It’s better. Everyone would be on the Run for the Roses.” 

Of course, the Rose Bowl would be treated as the Rose Bowl, but in turn, you’re the College Football Playoff national champion. It just happens to end in Pasadena.

“It’s like there are only a few events in our country. You know, the Kentucky Derby, the Masters on Sunday in particular, the Super Bowl, like, there’s only a few that it’s like, man, those are premium,” Klatt said. “And we have one in college football, and we shove it into a quarter final with two more rounds to go. Like, grab it. Grab it in the season on the first, it fixes the calendar for the transfer portal, and it creates an anchor destination for our sport. The Rose Bowl is the most magical place to watch a football game on the planet.”