College Football 5th Quarter: New Year’s Six recap, Championship preview
3. The Rose Bowl
The parade and pageantry of The Rose Bowl was actually outdone by the game itself. There have been some amazing Rose Bowl games in my lifetime: the 2017 edition between Penn State and USC, Texas beating USC in 2006, and Ohio State going over Arizona State in 1997 to name a few. The 2018 edition as part of the College Football Playoff saw No.3 Georgia edge No. 2 Oklahoma 54-48 in double overtime.
The Oklahoma Sooners and Baker Mayfield showed early why they were the top rated offense per Bill C’s S&P+ rankings and why he won the Heisman Trophy. The Sooners jumped out to an early lead that got up to 31-17 at halftime after a boneheaded decision by Lincoln Riley to squib kick before the half. That squib allowed UGA to get into field goal range and Rodrigo Blankenship made a Rose Bowl record 55 yard field goal to pull within two scores.
More: What did we learn from the Rose Bowl?
The third quarter was all Bulldogs. On the night Jake Fromm, the true freshman from Georgia, threw for 210 yards and two touchdowns without turning the football over. The MVP of the 2018 Rose Bowl was Georgia running back Sony Michel. Michel ran for 16.5 yards per carry and scored four total touchdowns (3-rushing, 1-receiving). Nick Chubb, another veteran back for UGA, ran for 10.4 yards per carry and two more touchdowns.
Heisman winner Baker Mayfield wasn’t a let down in the contest. Mayfield threw for 287 yards, which was 8.2 yards per attempt, and threw two touchdowns with only one interception. Mayfield also caught a touchdown. Running back Rodney Anderson ran for 201 yards on 7.7 yards per carry and two touchdowns as neither team could stop the running game on January 1.
The Bulldogs blocked a double overtime field goal attempt by the Sooners and scored to win the OT period 9-3 and the game 54-48. If you watched the coaches film room on ESPN News- you saw some funny one liners but it was a little dry at times. I did enjoy the sheer amount of pizza Gary Patterson can consume, Major Applewhite‘s Big Bang Theory sense of humor not going over well with the baby boomers, and the amount of time the boomers spent on their phones considering that’s always the reputation of millennials and not boomers. Also, Dino Babers seems really cool.