New College Football Playoff format cancels two Rose Bowl traditions

While the University of Oregon and Ohio State University football teams are in town for their Rose Bowl matchup, they won’t be able to participate in two of the traditions accompanying the historic playoff game.

The two teams arrived at Los Angeles County on Sunday, three days before the College Football Playoff quarterfinal. While the two teams playing in the Rose Bowl typically arrived about a week before the game in past years, the new, expanded format of the playoffs changed the schedule.

“With the potential (for) a team to play in as many as four games, the College Football playoff worked closely with conference commissioners to implement a schedule that would work best for the participating teams,” Rose Bowl spokesperson Karen Linhart said to the City News Service.

The later arrivals mean the end of two Rose Bowl traditions -— the visit to Disneyland Resort and Lawry’s Beef Bowl, both of which date back to the 1950s. 

The two teams in the historic football game visited Disneyland every year since 1959, four years after the amusement park opened. In the week leading up to the big game, the Rose Bowl also partnered with Lawry’s for their annual Beef Bowl from 1956 through 2023, except for COVID-19-related cancellations in 2020 and 2021. 

The Beef Bowl is older than all but the Rose, Orange, Sugar, Sun, Cotton, Gator and Citrus bowls. It was billed by organizers as college football’s most enduring pre-bowl game tradition. 

“As a part of the playoff, some of the traditional bowl week events for the Rose Bowl Game are unable to take place,” Linhart said. “Disneyland and Lawry’s continue to be great partners of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and while it’s unfortunate that we are unable to have these off-site events, we want to do what’s best for our participating teams.” 

The College Football Playoff Board of Managers expanded the format of this year’s playoffs to include 12 teams, veering away from the four-team format it instituted during the last 10 seasons.

Oregon earned the top seed in the playoff and a first-round bye with a 45-37 victory over Penn State in the Big Ten championship game on Dec. 7, improving to 13-0 and remaining the lone undefeated team in the Football Bowl Subdivision. 

Eighth-seeded Ohio State (11-2) advanced to the game with a 42-17 victory over ninth-seeded Tennessee in a first-round game on Dec. 21. 

The game will be a rematch of the Ducks’ 32-31 victory over the Buckeyes on Oct. 12 at Eugene, Oregon, when Atticus Sappington kicked the go-ahead field goal with one minute, 47 seconds to play.

Oregon will be making its ninth appearance in the Rose Bowl and fifth since 2010. The Ducks are 4-4 in the Rose Bowl and have won on each of their three most recent trips, most recently defeating Wisconsin, 28-27, on New Year’s Day, 2020. 

Ohio State has made 16 Rose Bowl appearances, third-most all-time behind USC (34) and Michigan (21), and has a 9-7 record in the game.

The Buckeyes defeated Utah in its most recent Rose Bowl appearance two years ago. 

The victor will face the winner of the Peach Bowl game between fourth-seeded Arizona State and fifth-seeded Texas in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 10.

KCAL News Staff

The KCAL News Staff is a group of experienced journalists who bring you the content on KCALNews.com.