Everyone loves a good playoff game...except for the BCS, apparently. Every year the debate rages over the validity of the current college football
postseason system and the fairly wide demand for an overhauled playoff seeding system. Sure, playing in the Rose Bowl is cool, but having the chance
to hoist that National Championship trophy would be even sweeter, even if it meant going through several teams rather than one. But playoffs or no,
the grandeur of these top-rated bowl games is
undeniable, the pressure off the charts, the moment historic, and the possibilities endless. It's too bad that nearly none of that is captured in the
2013 Rose
Bowl Presented by Vizio Blu-ray release. This is a flat, bare-bones, no-effort football disc that's the game and nothing but
the game. It's as if someone DVR'd the game, removed the commercials, dropped it onto Blu-ray, threw together a cover, purchased some blue cases,
sealed it up, and called it "good to go." Fans just wanting to relive the game will be pleased on a basic level -- it's a better option than FF'ing through
commercials or, as it was years ago, taping it onto a wavy VHS cassette -- but fans who demand something a little more than a straight replay of what
was on television will be disappointed with the results, maybe even Stanford Cardinal fans who will otherwise be pleased with the outcome.
Game time.
The Wisconsin Badgers got the Rose Bowl under the leadership of Head Coach Bret Bielema, but lost the Rose Bowl under the guidance of former
coach-turned-athletic director-turned-coach Barry Alvarez, the coach who previously led the Badgers to a 2000 Rose Bowl victory over the Stanford
Cardinal and who, before the 2012 game, had never lost a Rose Bowl. The Badger squad, led by running back Montee Ball -- the 2012 Doak Walker
Award winner -- finished the season as Big Ten Champions with an 8-6 record and an even 4-4 mark in division play. The team began the season
ranked
twelfth in the country but never ascended any higher, dropping to thirteen after losing a three-point squeaker to Oregon State in week two and
finishing the year at twenty-three. The Badgers would continue an up-and-down season by reeling off two straight wins against Utah State and
UTEP before falling to the Nebraska Cornhuskers in week five in another three-point defeat. They would win three more before falling to Michigan
State in overtime and losing two more in extra time to both Ohio State and Penn State before clobbering Nebraska in the Big Ten Championship
Game en route to the Rose Bowl defeat.
The Stanford Cardinal enjoyed a much more even-keeled season. Second-year Head Coach David Shaw led the team to a rock-solid 12-2 record,
which included an 8-1 mark in division play. The Cardinal began the season ranked twenty-first in the nation, but three straight wins over San Jose
State, Duke, and USC pushed them to eight. They would lose the fourth game of the season at Washington to fall back to eighteenth. They
regrouped with a home win against Arizona before dropping another game, this time to Notre Dame, an overtime affair in South Bend. Now ranked
twenty-second, the Cardinal wouldn't lose again, rising to eighth in the nation by the time they would play in the Rose Bowl. Shaw's team would
reel off six straight victories against Cal, Washington State, Colorado, Oregon State, Oregon, and UCLA. They would play UCLA again only a week
later in the Pac-12 Championship Game, this time at home rather than in Pasadena, and the team would return again to Pasadena more than a
month later on January 1, 2013, to defeat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.
Only the second half of the game was something of a low-scoring snoozer, but this entree Blu-ray is a low-scoring snoozer. As noted earlier,
2013
Rose
Bowl Presented by Vizio is nothing more than the game's broadcast transferred to Blu-ray. As such, there's really not a lot to say about it, and
certainly nothing to praise, other than that the commercials are gone and it at least doesn't look any worse than the original broadcast. This is the
game and, accessible from the menu, the post-game trophy presentation. That's it. There are no
added interviews, no snazzy home video production values, no documentary style looks back at the team's seasons, no brief highlight reels, and not
even
text lists of scores and top performers (not that that's hard to find on the Internet, but it would have at least added something to the disc
that
would have required minimal effort on the part of the disc production team). Buyers are receiving the game and
the case. It's a convenient way to re-experience exactly what aired on television, minus commercials of course, but fans hoping for something more
in
line with the documentary style of, say, the very good Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl release will be disappointed, maybe even disgusted, with this one.
Those who watched the game on television will be pleased (or probably saddened, really) to know that this release almost perfectly replicates a watchable
but imperfect broadcast source. 2013 Rose Bowl Presented by Vizio rushes onto Blu-ray with a meager MPEG-2 encoded, 1.78:1 high definition
transfer that looks like it was pulled off the living room DVR. Unlike
the usually excellent WWE releases that often improve, a bit, on the broadcast quality (whether new
release or old standard definition material), this transfer is the
video equivalent of barebones, offering a clear, watchable, satisfactory picture but absolutely nothing more. There's some unsightly shimmering on
graphics and straight lines and some obvious
compression eyesores. On the plus side, details are mostly satisfying in close-ups shots, revealing the texture of uniforms and the turf field. Distance
shots, on the other hand, lack that decent detailing from the grass or uniforms, and some of the overhead aerial shots look downright awful. Colors are
pleasing enough. Green
turf and the sea of red (both teams sport red and white color schemes) on the field and in the stands look fine. This release will please fans who just
want to relive
the game without the chore of skipping commercials, but anyone expecting this to look like a movie will be disappointed.
2013 Rose Bowl Presented by Vizio features a completely uninspired Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Again, it's simply no better than the
broadcast sound. Ambient crowd noise is cramped up the middle and wholly unrealistic, featuring no range and only the most basic clarity. The same
may be said of the band music: low-end clarity, no range, no sense of immersion. The good news is that the play-by-play is never forced to compete
with the rest of the track, never lost in the shuffle of crowd cheers or music. Brent
Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit, calling the game up in the booth, and Heather Cox and Tom Rinaldi, commenting down on the sidelines, all come through
clearly enough. Basic game sound effects -- blowing whistles, pad-on-pad hits -- are like the rest of the presentation, playing with an adequate sonic
signature but nothing more. Compare this to the DVR'd copy of the game, chances are it'll be impossible to tell them apart.
2013 Rose Bowl contains only the post-game trophy presentation ceremony (HD, 10:26). Unlike the National Championship game disc, it's only
available through the main menu and is not tacked onto the end of the game. A DVD copy is also included.
2013 Rose Bowl Presented by Vizio is a disappointing barebones college football home video presentation, but fans of the Stanford Cardinal will
probably want to own it, anyway, but only if the game doesn't still reside on the living room DVR. For those who still have it, it's the same thing, minus
commercials and with a basic quarter-by-quarter chapter select. Whether that's worth the cost of the disc is up to each viewer, especially considering
the lackluster
picture and sound and no bonus content. Recommended as a skip to anyone without the game already in some capacity or folks with the Stanford logo
tattooed on their chest (i.e., "superfans").
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