Rose Bowl a beauty of a consolation prize for Hawkeyes

IOWA CITY — The sting of Saturday night's Big Ten title-game loss to Michigan State will endure, but Sunday brought Iowa's football team the best consolation prize sports has to offer.

Two magic sports words: Rose Bowl.

There are 40 bowl games, yet there is really only one. It is in Pasadena, Calif., in a setting that's so eye-pleasing, and with history and tradition no other postseason college game rivals. Iowa, courtesy of the College Football Playoff selection committee and the Rose Bowl itself, is headed West to play Stanford on Jan. 1.

The playoff people ranked Iowa fifth, just one slot from reaching the national-championship semifinals. The Rose Bowl then took the highest-ranked available Big Ten team, not No. 7 Ohio State.

Saturday's 16-13 defeat to the Spartans in Indianapolis has left emotional scar tissue, for sure.

'Certainly, last night was a tough night for us and this news is good medicine, I think, for all of us,' Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said Sunday. 'Just to ease the tough outcome.'

Saturday night's game was a ferocious duel decided by less by a half-yard here, a few feet there on some of the critical plays of MSU's now-immortalized 22-play touchdown drive. It was a result in which the Spartans' lucky-but-alert second-quarter end zone interception by Demetrious Cox made a world of difference.

If Cox doesn't make that play ... but he did.

It was fang-and-claw football from start to finish, one in which the nation put the Hawkeyes under a periscope and drew this conclusion about them: Tough, gutty outfit.

Until the last Michigan State possession, Iowa's defense played a fantastic game, equal to its efforts in wins at Wisconsin and Northwestern.

Even Hawkeye doubters around the nation softened their stances on the team after witnessing Saturday's battle. For the playoff committee to boot Iowa below 11-1 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl's pecking order wouldn't have felt right, not when the Buckeyes had lost at home to that same Spartans club.

'I had my questions about Iowa all year,' ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit said Sunday. 'It wasn't necessarily about them but it was more about who they have beaten and are they that good. I probably gained more respect (for them) in the Big Ten Championship than in the previous 12 games they played.'

The Rose could have taken Ohio State despite the CFP rankings, with the Buckeyes being a proven national TV attraction. But if there's one major sporting event in the U.S. other than the Masters that doesn't bend to the great god television, it's Granddaddy Bowl Game.

This invitation is great for Iowa on two fronts. One, hey, it's the Rose Bowl. Indianapolis was Kinnick East Saturday night. On New Year's, the Hawkeyes will play in Kinnick West. It's not a stretch to envision as many as 60,000 Iowa supporters in Pasadena.

Two, the Hawkeyes get a big-time opponent in Stanford, the champions of the Pacific-12 Conference.

For Iowa to leave an indelible, favorable final impression, it needs an opponent that matters. Stanford, making its third Rose Bowl appearance in the last four years, is enjoying its fifth season of 10 or more wins in the last six years.

Should Iowa find a way to defeat the Cardinal, this will be its best season since it won the Big Ten in 1958 and capped that campaign with a 38-12 Rose Bowl victory over California.

The 2009 Hawkeyes won a major bowl when they beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl. But that's small potatoes compared to what defeating a Pac-12 champ in the Rose Bowl would mean, on top of the fact it would make for a fabulous final record of 13-1.

There's still this little business of playing the actual game. Stanford is good, really good. Tough and talented. The Cardinal have been installed by Nevada oddsmakers as 6.5-point favorites.

But by now most people know Iowa is not only 12-1, but will come to play no matter the opponent or venue.

'I'm not sure I've been around a team that is not only prepared each week,' Ferentz said, 'but then shown up and competed about as hard as you can compete 12 times. These guys have done it, and then last night was the 13th time.

There's no reason to expect the Hawkeyes to go Hollywood now, even if that's where they're headed.