The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, hosts its big Granddaddy-of-them-all bowl game of course, but has also hosted five Super Bowls, a few soccer World Cups and Olympic events, not to mention — back in the day — camel, elephant and ostrich races.

But it has never hosted LSU football.

Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia have all been. Even Tulane went in 1932.

But never the Tigers.

And, as we shall see, that’s probably UCLA’s fault.

So maybe it’s fitting that UCLA has invited the Tigers for next week’s season opener in its famous home stadium a mere 26 miles from the Bruins’ campus.

UCLA will even allow beer sales for the first time since 1989, so the school knows its guests.

Maybe it’s not quite the same as The Rose Bowl. UCLA has trouble filling the historic joint up for its regular-season games.

So for the LSU game the Bruins are letting any high school students in Los Angeles County attend for free.

Anyway, LSU’s originally planned first trip to the famed stadium was so too good-to-be-true that it never quite happened.

That was 2006 and it was supposed to be not just the Rose Bowl, but The Rose Bowl game on Jan. 1 2007.

Everything was working out just perfectly.

Until 2019 and Joe Burrow came along, 2006 might have been the Tigers’ most talented team.

Don’t argue with me on this. True, LSU had won the BCS national championship in 2003 and the next year, 2007, would win another one.

But the 2006 team probably had more talent than either.

The LSU coaches didn’t realize, apparently, that they had the No. 1 pick in the draft at quarterback (never mind that JaMarcus Russell bombed in the NFL) and three other eventual first-round picks at wide receiver. So a stubborn run-first game plan cost them a game at Auburn. Murphy’s Law hijacked the game plan in a 23-10 loss at Florida that the Tigers otherwise dominated.

Those two losses, talented as LSU was, meant the Tigers weren’t really in national title picture. The old BCS polls and computers couldn’t make the math work.

But LSU was set up for one heckuva consolation prize.

It was all but a done deal.

Things were setting up for No. 2 Southern Cal to play No. 1 Ohio State in the BCS title game, set for Glendale, Arizona.

That would rob The Rose Bowl of its traditional match up of Big Ten and Pac-12 champions.

It was no secret that LSU was in line to stand in for the Trojans in The Rose Bowl.

Not only that, but the opponent would be Michigan. Remember now, the LSU coach was noted “Michigan Man” Les Miles, who would be forced to face his dear alma mater.

What’s more perfect than that? Try out those story lines in advance.

As a sweetener, LSU had already pre-sold 42,500 Rose Bowl tickets that were scarfed up so quickly by fans that the school stopped taking orders.

A lot of buyers already had airline and lodging reservations.

What could go wrong?

The only thing standing in the way of the dream trip was for USC to take care of business against in its final regular-season game against a nondescript 5-5 UCLA team.

A lot of LSU fans had to swallow hard to pull for USC, a bad-blood carry-over from sharing the 2003 national titles.

My friend Ray, for instance, couldn’t bring himself to do it even after I explained to him that if USC lost he’d have some hotel reservations in Los Angeles to cancel.

Maybe blame Ray, but of course the Bruins pulled off the upset of the season with a 13-9 jaw-dropper.

It had a familiar ring for LSU fans.

USC quarterback John David Booty, whose big brother Josh set the LSU single-season interception record with 19 in 1999, threw a late pick with the Trojans driving for a go-ahead touchdown.

And the once-in-a-lifetime trip disappeared.

USC went to the Rose Bowl. Florida beat Ohio State in the BCS title game.

It wasn’t the end of the world for LSU. The Tigers got the Sugar Bowl instead, and had themselves a jolly good time hammering Notre Dame 41-14.

But next week maybe LSU fans can still use those hotel deposits.

—

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com