Penn State Football: Rose Bowl? This Is the Selection Process

Penn State football finds itself just days away from learning its bowl destination as conference championship weekend will iron out the final wrinkles of a busy and dramatic postseason selection process.

For the most part, the prevailing projections have been sending Penn State to the Cotton Bowl with Ohio State set to make a repeat appearance in the Rose Bowl after beating Utah last year 48-45 in Pasadena. This comes from a general sentiment that the Rose Bowl selects the best available Big Ten team that is not participating in the College Football Playoffs if a Big Ten team is in fact in the CFP. Ohio State is ranked No. 5 in the latest CFP rankings while Penn State sits at No. 8.

But as ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit noted during Tuesday night’s release of the CFP rankings, if Ohio State does not make the CFP, the Rose Bowl might not be inclined to take the Buckeyes for a second-straight year. This could all be a moot point if Ohio State makes the CFP, which would likely only happen if Kansas State were to beat No. 3 TCU this weekend.

Nevertheless, since everyone has opinions about how the process works, here’s what the Rose Bowl website itself says about the selection process. It has been edited slightly for brevity:

“In what is known as a ”traditional’ Rose Bowl Game year, the 2023 Rose Bowl Game is contractually obligated to feature the Pac-12 Conference Champion and the Big Ten Conference Champion. In both the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and the CFP, if Pac-12 or Big Ten Conference Champion was selected to the National Championship or National Semifinals, that team was released to play in that game and the Tournament of Roses would select a replacement team.

“Should a team from the Big Ten or Pac-12 be selected to go to the College Football Playoff, the Tournament of Roses will traditionally select the next-highest CFP-ranked team from that conference. There is, however, a caveat to that clause in the contract. If the next-highest ranked team is in a ‘cluster’ of teams, meaning there is another team or teams from the same conference ranked within several spots of each other, the Tournament of Roses will select the team from that cluster that will result in the best possible matchup for the Rose Bowl Game.”

“In a cluster situation, the Tournament of Roses will take into account factors, in no particular order, such as: the last time a team played in the Rose Bowl Game, head-to-head results, regular season schedule, overall record, opponents played, past playoff or bowl appearances and performance, and historical matchups. It should be noted that it is the strong preference of the Tournament of Roses, Pac-12 and Big Ten Conferences, that the highest-ranked available team in each conference be selected as the replacement team.”