San Diego • Utah and Northwestern will kick off Monday afternoon in the California sunshine, playing one day earlier and 130 miles south of their preferred time and place for a bowl game.
The Rose Bowl practically was within sight of the Utes and Wildcats a month ago, playing in conference championship games that offered them the opportunity to qualify for one of college football’s most glamorous events. They both lost.
Yet as coaches Kyle Whittingham of Utah and Pat Fitzgerald of Northwestern appeared at a news conference on a spectacular Sunday morning in a hotel fronting the San Diego Marina, their programs hardly looked like losers.