LOS ANGELES — Penn State is looking forward to its first Rose Bowl appearance in eight years Monday, but there’s still a bit of chagrin the Nittany Lions weren’t playing Saturday in the College Football Playoff instead.
“We’re all competitors,” Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour said Saturday. “If there’s a place in the pecking order that competitively you can be, that’s where you want to be. Certainly, we believe that we were College Football Playoff worthy, and that we deserved one of those four places.
“The committee decided otherwise, and we get to come to the Rose Bowl and play a really, really good USC team in the hottest game in the country.