Pasadena, Calif. • Stack the appeals and the curiosities of the 104th Rose Bowl, and you end up with a grandaddy of a heap.
There's the freshness of Oklahoma and Georgia, old codgers of football ambition, tangling for the first time in the 148 years since the nation started going cuckoo, somehow, for football played by collegians.
There's the electricity that flows from doubling as a College Football Playoff semifinal, the winner advancing to Jan. 8 and to Atlanta opposite the winner of the Sugar Bowl between No. 1 Clemson (12-1) and No. 4 Alabama (11-1).