Vannini: The Rose Bowl should host the national championship every year, so why

It was not hard to feel the difference when ESPN’s College Football Playoff semifinals broadcast switched games on New Year’s Day. Michigan players clasping roses in their mouths under a night sky in Pasadena gave way to the perfect, somewhat sterile lighting of a domed NFL stadium in New Orleans.

With all due respect to the people who work for the Sugar Bowl and the people who will play a role in Monday’s national championship game in Houston, the last two games of this college football season just can’t match the feeling of the Rose Bowl.

At a time when college football is losing many of the things that long made it feel unique from the NFL, the Rose Bowl is one of the strongest remaining connections to the college game’s treasured history. That’s why the Rose Bowl should be the annual home of the College Football Playoff national championship. No one knows all the ways the upcoming 12-team CFP era will change FBS football, but it could gain some familiarity and stability by pointing to the same end of the road each season, the way high school and other levels of college football play their championship games in the same place most years.

Inside the stadium and on TV, there is no longer much discernible difference between the Sugar, Cotton, Peach or Fiesta Bowls, all of which are played in NFL stadiums. The Cotton Bowl isn’t even played in its stadium namesake. The Orange Bowl, at least, is played outside (mostly). But we’ve all watched dozens if not hundreds of games in those stadiums — whether that’s an NFL game, a college football regular season game or a bowl game. They’re great venues. They’re not special.

The Rose Bowl is special. It’s the only college football stadium to which fans will make an offseason pilgrimage because of its postseason game. The broadcast goes out of its way to bring you fully into that scene. It’s not just about a nice sunset.

The Rose Bowl is college football’s version of the Masters, which is unique in its scenery and stands out from golf’s other majors. Both events have gone to great lengths to keep themselves feeling special, sometimes to an extent that prevents progress in their respective sports.

I’ve been a proponent of playing the national championship there for a long time. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit brought up the idea again on Tuesday, a day after calling Michigan’s overtime win against Alabama. And with Michigan and Washington meeting in the national championship, fans who grew up in Big Ten and Pac-12 territory couldn’t help but think of what might have been.

Like Herbstreit, I am one of those people. I grew up in Michigan during a period when reaching the Rose Bowl felt like the pinnacle of the sport, even after the Bowl Championship Series was introduced.

The game was within the BCS when arguably the greatest college football game of all time — Texas–USC’s national title thriller to cap the 2005 season — took place at the Rose Bowl, adding…