Let’s say I was presented with a cache of tickets to various places and events, all within the United States.

Some would be plane tickets and reservations to resorts in warm climates, like Miami or San Diego. Some would be tickets to music festivals, like Coachella or Bonnaroo. Tickets to film festivals, tickets to the Harry Potter theme park and so on. We’re talking lucrative vacation opportunities.

If I should ever be given this opportunity, I’d probably sift through all of them until I found the one bearing a distinctive rose.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to attend the past two Rose Bowls, and boy do the football gods know I pine to return again some day. Beaches are basically one and the same to me; resorts aren’t my taste; music festivals are a completely different kind of atmosphere. When it comes to other sporting events, as long as I had no loyalties to either team, I think I’d rather head down to Pasadena and go to the Rose Bowl.

The scene is majestic: The weather could hardly be better, the San Gabriel Mountains drape the background, the stadium is a National Historic Landmark (a true rarity in sports) and the crowd contains two warring fan bases – at least in the case of Wisconsin and its two recent foes, Texas Christian and Oregon.

Nobody can deny the Rose Bowl’s place in sports. But everyone – the BCS, Pac-12 and Big Ten included – must realize the Rose Bowl will have to take a hit (along with all the other bowls) in order for college football to escape its long documented history of postseason buffoonery.

Somewhat shoved to the background thanks to the aftermath of college basketball’s Final Four, college hockey’s Frozen Four, MLB’s opening day and the Masters Tournament, USA Today obtained documents last week revealing the BCS is considering four new options on how to crown a national champion.

The four options vary in quality – only two include playoff systems – but, dare I say it, all of them are improvements over the current format.

But the last one, despite being an improvement of sorts, is also dog dumb.

It goes like this: Every year, the top four teams in the nation will enter a playoff for the national championship game. But, if just one of the top four teams comes from the Big Ten or Pac-12, then the Rose Bowl suddenly becomes a third semifinals game, and the Big Ten and Pac-12 champs will play in Pasadena.

The next highest ranked teams will fill out the other two semifinals games, and after all three games are played, some sort of selection process will decide who among the three winners gets to play for the national title.

The fact that I had to write the phrase “three semifinals” is enough to make me go bonkers. For now, we can humor the BCS and call them the trifinals.

It’s a nice gesture to try to protect the Rose Bowl from dilution. With a system like this, it ensures the first-place Big Ten and Pac-12 schools will meet in Pasadena every year, its traditional setup. Without it, outsiders – known as at-large bids – would continue to sneak into the sanctified bowl game.

But this format gives those two conferences a huge advantage over their peers. In the event that the Rose Bowls were to be spawned as an additional semifinal (creating the trifinals), both conferences stand a good chance of having a team in position of the BCS standings to snatch up one or both of the extra trifinal spots.

This thought experiment was confirmed by SB Nation’s Jason Kirk, who demonstrated it using the scenarios of the past five years. For example, in 2010, Oregon won its conference and was ranked No. 2 in the BCS, which would render the Rose Bowl a trifinal. No. 5 Wisconsin, the Big Ten counterpart selected for the game, would thus be party to the trifinal (and a chance to go the title game). Meanwhile, No. 6 Ohio State is next in line to take Oregon’s now-vacant seat in one of the other two semifinal games.

So, because of this rule, the Big Ten would suddenly have two teams competing for a national title even though neither of them were ranked in the top four. In any other year, the chances of the Pac-12 having someone sitting at No. 5 or 6 are relatively likely as well, as demonstrated by Kirk in his article.

And let’s say Wisconsin wasn’t ranked No. 5 and Ohio State wasn’t No. 6. The Big Ten still would have been a benefactor since it has to send someone to the Rose Bowl every season. It doesn’t matter what the team is ranked. By virtue of being the Big Ten champion, they get to be included in the trifinal against No. 2 Oregon and play for a trip to the national championship.

With just a four-team playoff, at-large bids would almost certainly gain entrance to the Rose Bowl more frequently, but I don’t think that inflicts a harsh wound on the tradition of the 98-year-old game.

Teams from outside the Big Ten and Pac-12 have made appearances in Pasadena since 1916. Alabama hasn’t been to the Rose Bowl since 1946 but has more appearances (six) than 12 teams from the Big Ten and Pac-12, and its four victories put it in seventh place all-time.

The first Rose Bowl I attended featured Wisconsin versus TCU, and the game was no less special to me. As a non-AQ team, TCU might have even made that game more intriguing for a national audience anyway – especially since the Horned Frogs won.

No matter who’s in the Rose Bowl, it’ll be the same marquee game it always is. Merely entertaining this convoluted idea robs the Rose Bowl of its pageantry. It would become an inconvenience in the overall effort of crowning a champion the fair way; the Rose Bowl would become something to grumble about rather than marvel at.

And I need a vacation I can rely on.

Elliot is a senior majoring in journalism. Is the Rose Bowl worth all this trouble? Let him know at [email protected].