TurfNet will soon be headed to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena as part of field superintendent Will Schnell's crew in the run-up to the New Year's Day game between Oregon and Wisconsin thanks to our partners at Brandt. Coverage will focus on efforts to prep the world's most famous field for college football's oldest bowl game. 

Before focusing on the "what" and the "how" of this opportunity, it is first important to recognize the "why". 

There are 41 college bowl games, plus a national championship game this year. None, including the other traditional New Year's Day games, the playoff semifinals and the title game can compare to the Rose Bowl's history, significance and contributions to the college football landscape. And none can match the field that Schnell and his team provide for the players. To relate to the golf world, this game and this venue are the closest that team sports can come to matching venues like Augusta National, Oakmont or Pebble Beach. 

It's hard to find a venue nowadays that does not have a commemorative statue memorializing the accomplishments of (typically) a former player or coach. Pinehurst has Payne Stewart and Notre Dame Stadium honors names like Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy. At the Rose Bowl in Southern California, a recently unveiled statue of late broadcasting great Keith Jackson pays tribute to his contributions to the game he nicknamed "The Granddaddy of Them All."

Indeed, as the oldest college football postseason game, the Rose Bowl drips with history on the field, on the sidelines and in the broadcast booth.

The first bowl game played in the Rose Bowl stadium saw USC beat Penn State 14-3. Leo Calland was a guard on that USC team. Eventually, he became director of the San Diego Parks and Recreation department and in 1957 supervised construction of Torrey Pines.

The names of those who played and coached in the game in Pasadena's Arroyo Seco are a who's who of college football, including Alan Ameche, Archie Griffin, O.J. Simpson, Dick Butkus, Marcus Allen, Knute Rockne, Woody Hayes and Gen. Robert Neyland, just to name a few. 

In recognition of the 150th anniversary of college football, the Football Bowl Association (who knew there was such a thing?) recently announced its list of the top 25 postseason college football bowl games.

Predictably, the Rose Bowl is mentioned several times, with the 2006 edition occupying the top spot on the list. The game featured the only two remaining unbeaten teams through the regular season, top-ranked USC, with quarterback Matt Leinert and the 1-2 punch of Reggie Bush and LenDale White vs. Texas and quarterback Vince Young. No. 2 Texas won the title, its first since 1969, when Young went 9 yards on fourth down with 20 seconds left in the game to cap a 41-38 win for the Longhorns.

It's the storied tradition of the Rose Bowl that helped make the 2006 game so historic. Fittingly, the bowl association's list of top games was released the same week the stadium unveiled the statue of Jackson, who called 15 Rose Bowl games and gave the game its famous nickname due to its place as college football's oldest bowl game.

Many bowl games have come and gone, but the Rose Bowl - both the game and the stadium - have withstood the test of time. While the game's other traditional major postseason affairs - the Sugar, Orange and Cotton bowls, along with new major bowls like the Peach and Fiesta - have all moved into new, fancier stadiums since they were founded, the Rose Bowl has been played in the same venue for nearly a century.

The game was first played in 1902 as an East vs. West tournament - Michigan beat Stanford 49-0 in the inaugural game - and has been played every year since 1916. The first site was Tournament Park, now part of the California Institute of Technology campus in Pasadena. The game moved to its current site in 1923 in the newly built Rose Bowl Stadium that was patterned after the Yale Bowl (bet even Scott Ramsay didn't know that), and has been played there every year since, except 1942. That game, which was played just weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor that launched the United States into World War II, was moved to Duke amid fears of a Japanese attack on the west coast.

The first bowl game played in the stadium, fittingly, saw USC beat Penn State 14-3. Leo Calland was a guard on that USC team. Eventually, he became director of the San Diego Parks and Recreation department and in 1957 supervised construction of a city-owned golf course located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. That course is Torrey Pines. 

The East vs. West model became the more traditional Pac 12 (formerly the Pacific Coast Conference) vs. the Big 10 in 1953, with a few exceptions. Georgia and Oklahoma played in 2018 and Oregon faced Florida State in 2015, both as part of the College Football Playoff, and, of course, there was the aforementioned USC-Texas classic in 2006.

Many bowl games have come and gone, but the Rose Bowl - both the game and the stadium - have withstood the test of time. It has been played in the same venue for nearly a century.

Unlike many sports venues that dot the landscape, the Rose Bowl is nestled in a quiet picturesque setting with Brookside Golf Course just outside the north end zone. There is pretty much one way in and one way out through the surrounding upscale neighborhood. 

Built in the Arroyo Seco, a seasonal riverbed that stretches 24 miles through Los Angeles County, the stadium opened as a horseshoe. Eventually the end zone was enclosed, and from 1972 to 2007 the stadium boasted a seating capacity of more than 104,000. Once the country's largest stadium, the Rose Bowl now has a seating capacity of 92,542, making it the 11th largest stadium in the country, 10th largest in college football (it has been home to UCLA since 1982) and the 15th largest venue worldwide. It is one of only four stadiums nationwide to be included on the list of National Historic Landmarks and one of two in the L.A. area, the other being the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

The stadium's history includes more than football. It was the site of the gold medal soccer match during the 1984 summer Olympics, was a venue during the FIFA World Cup in 1994 and was the site of the Women's World Cup in 1999, a scene made famous by Brandi Chastain after she scored the winning goal in a shootout as the U.S. outlasted China in the championship.

That's the good thing about history, there is always more to be made, and the Rose Bowl will be the site of much more. Here endeth today's lesson.