The Power of the Rose

LOS ANGELES — During his days as a center for the Iowa Hawkeyes, Brian Ferentz ached to play in the Rose Bowl. In the mid-2000s, it remained the ultimate goal for midwestern kids who happened to be blessed with the essential genetics and drive to make it on to the college football stage.

Iowa thought it had a Rose Bowl. For about five days after the Hawkeyes finished an undefeated Big Ten season in 2002, the Hawkeyes thought they had a Rose Bowl. It didn't work out, and so Iowa played USC not in the Rose but in the Orange Bowl.

It's been 25 years between Rose Bowls, but here are the No. 5 Hawkeyes (12-1) in the Rose Bowl opposite No. 6 Stanford (11-2).

It's a different world now with the College Football Playoff being the ultimate goal. But watching Iowa players unload the bus Thursday at the Rose Bowl for a walk through and a team picture you saw countless players stop and take selfies with the iconic neon 'Rose Bowl' sign at the backdrop. A few were even lucky enough to get pictures with legendary play-by-play voice Brent Musburger, who'll be calling the game for ESPN (4:10 p.m. kickoff).

The CFP is the CFP. The Rose Bowl is the Rose Bowl. The bloom still glows with the Iowa program.

Ferentz, who's in his fourth season as Iowa's offensive line coach under his dad, still has the 1986 Rose Bowl jersey coaches' families received in 1986, when his father, Kirk, now Iowa's head coach, was offensive line coach under Hayden Fry.

He's 32 years old. He was 3 when he got that jersey.

'If you grow up in the state of Iowa, if you grow up around Big Ten football, this is the ultimate prize,' Brian Ferentz said. 'We live in a new world. This isn't the ultimate prize anymore, I understand that and I'm getting adjusted to that, but for the small kid from Iowa, this is a big deal.'

OK, Kirk Ferentz and the Hawkeyes have now bonked this monkey off the program's back. If Iowa wins, this team will be revered for the ages, so that's all the better. Win or lose, the question is what can this Rose Bowl appearance do for Iowa's program?

It's harder to get to the Rose Bowl and after a 25-year absence, you have to ask how the program could parlay this into something more than a patch on the players' jerseys.

Kirk Ferentz had a front-row seat for the spring that Hayden Fry's first Rose Bowl in 1981 injected into the program.

'It was 19 straight losing seasons not only to go to a bowl, but to go to a Rose Bowl,' Ferentz said. 'That was so, so special and such a magical time. Then to me, it was just the beginning of really building a program that was respected nationally and had a chance to compete with anybody nationally.'

There, that's where this is headed. That's what this can do for the 2015 Hawkeyes and beyond. They made it. They showed it's doable in a world of two divisions in the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl being in the CFP final four on a regular basis.

Iowa offensive coordinator Greg Davis coached in the Rose Bowl three times as Texas' offensive coordinator. Iowa isn't Texas, but if Iowa wants to live where Texas lives, it has to start shopping for real estate in Beverly Hills/New Year's Six Bowls at some point.

'It brings a little bit of legitimacy to the program,' said Davis, who's just finishing his fourth season at Iowa. 'We're a little bit of an unknown quantity nationally. I think what you see in Stanford is they've become somewhat of a media darling. How they've done that is they've created an atmosphere of success at a very high level.

'This is the first step for us in reaching that neighborhood. Kirk likes to say we're still renting in that neighborhood, but if you're going to buy a house in that neighborhood, you eventually have to be there.'

Don't look for a recruiting bump this year. Iowa has 24 commitments and, according to assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Seth Wallace, might only have room for one or two more prospects.

Don't look for a recruiting bump this year. Next year?

'I predict this will allow us the opportunity to evaluate more guys,' said Wallace, who's finishing his second season at Iowa. 'Because this game is being played on a national scale, there are more eyes on the program. There's more interest and we see that, whether it's traffic on social media or wherever.

'I imagine in the near future, we're going to be faced with a much larger pool of candidates. We've got to continue to stick to the values we use in evaluating prospects and the values that have led us to 12-1 and the Rose Bowl.'

The CFP is the CFP, but it's not the Rose Bowl. You watched the CFP games on New Year's Eve, because, for whatever reason, it doesn't want to lock horns with the tradition of the Rose Bowl, which has had this 4 p.m. central time slot and its own space on TV for eternity.

That's power.

'It signifies accomplishment, championship, success, excellence,' said defensive line coach Reese Morgan, a lifelong Iowan who's been on Ferentz's staff at Iowa since 2000. 'We're trying to take advantage of it right now during recruiting, highlighting it in a lot of ways because it is special to play here.'

Former Iowa quarterback Chuck Long, who's been in Los Angeles all week as part of the Big Ten Network's coverage, played in two Rose Bowls for the Hawkeyes. OK, he didn't really play in the first one. He got in for two snaps. His story on that is all about the power of the Rose Bowl.

'We're getting beat 28-0 (against Washington in 1981) and Hayden turns to me and says, 'Charlie, get in there and get on TV for the hometown folk,'' Long said. 'I go in and get two snaps. The credits were rolling on the TV. Then, I go back to my hometown of Wheaton (Ill.) and they almost throw a parade for me because I was in the Rose Bowl. That's the power of the Rose Bowl.

'I said, 'Guys, I was only in for two snaps.' Everyone said, 'Chuck, you were in the Rose Bowl, man!''

Stanford has established a Rose Bowl standard. This is the Cardinal's third Rose Bowl in four seasons. Coach David Shaw isn't sick of it. Nope, not at all.

'There's nothing like the Rose Bowl,' Shaw said. 'I don't want to just give you coach speak, but when you pull up to the hotel and you see the roses, you remember as a kid, especially — I mean, I watched the Rose Bowl every single year. There is nothing that got in the way of the Rose Bowl, not lunchtime, not other bowl games, not family get-togethers. Our world stopped when the Rose Bowl came around.'

Now, establishing a Rose Bowl standard is trickier at Iowa. Friday's kickoff will snap a 25-year Rose Bowl drought. When, in a January news conference, Ferentz cleared the air after a 7-6 stalemate in 2014 — he'd never had a January news conference, by the way — he emphatically reiterated the Iowa program's mission statement. Its goal is to compete for Big Ten championships every season.

Yes, that's easier said than done, but . . . they nearly did it this year, won the program's first Big Ten West Division championship and did make it here, to Pasadena for the first time since 1991.

It's a foot in the door. They all now know what it takes. They've all had a taste and they're going to want another.

Ferentz credited Stanford's achievement and spoke a little about Iowa's path to this standard.

'All I know is us, and everything will come hard next year,' Ferentz said. 'Not that I'm looking toward next year, but I know this after 26 years, everything comes hard. Nothing's easy. Everything's earned. So, you only handle that when it gets here.

'Right now, doing well in this game's going to come hard, too. That's where we're really focused right now.'

Totally understandable. Legendary status is on the table Friday. Everyone Iowa knows it.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com