Joe Paterno when asked about the Rose Bowl:

“You talked a little bit about the distractions at the Rose Bowl and now they are fining…
They weren’t distractions. It was the situation. When a Big Ten team goes to the play Southern Cal, it’s a home game (for them) and you don’t have (nearby) practice facilities…it’sa tough job.

You mentioned that you weren’t able to adapt to it and that affected the team. Is that what you were saying?
I don’t know if that affected the team. I think they were in the bus too many hours and when we got to the stadium, I don’t think we were zeroed in and what we had to be. When we go to a bowl game, I don’t have any curfews until the last few days. I think the kids deserve to have to have some fun. I have a process that we use and we’ve been pretty successful with it. I cancelled two practices and a third that I would have liked to have had, but I didn’t want to get them on a bus for an hour and a half. The Rose Bowl is also very demanding on what you have to do socially. You have to have a steak dinner, you have to do this and that and go over to Disney. It’s a very tough job. Having said that, the last time we went we played Oregon. Oregon was not a Los Angeles team. I had assumed we would be in the same boat we were with Oregon and we didn’t do a good job. I hate to talk that way because I think Southern Cal is a fine football team that’s well coached. It was one of those days.”

You tell em Joe. The next time ESPN wants to run some gimmicky Conference Bowl Challenge winner, let’s take into account that playing in the Rose Bowl against USC, the Alamo Bowl against Texas A&M, Orange Bowl against Florida State, or even the Sugar Bowl against LSU is not considered in any way a neutral game site.

Want to really flex that SEC, Pac 10 and Big 12 muscle? Force those good ol’ boys down south to play at least 1 non-conference game north of the Mason-Dixon line every season. Imagine LSU, Florida or Miami playing at Heinz Field, Lambeau Field, Soldier Stadium or even the Medowlands in the dead of November. They wouldn’t even want to get off the bus.

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