The USC Trojans won the Rose Bowl over the Penn State Nittany Lions, 38-24 on New Years Day.

“I thought that we were playing against the best and I thought we had to play our best to be competitive,” Penn St. coach Joe Paterno said. “In the first half, we just did the dumb things that we have not done all year. We didn’t play our game in the first half, but we came back and we hung in there. So we have nothing to be ashamed of.

During the first half the 82-year old head coach was disgusted with his teams performance when they gave USC a 31-7 lead.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Southern Cal, because they played a heck of a football game and their quarterback played a great game,” he said. “They certainly deserved to win it, but I’m a little disappointed that we weren’t a little bit more competitive. And a lot of that was because we made so many mistakes in the first half.”

After the game Trojans coach Pete Carrol said his team deserved to be playing for the National Championship more than the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators.

“With all due respect, those are two great programs, I don’t think anybody can beat the Trojans,” Carroll said. “I just think we can beat anyone we played. That’s happened a lot to us late in the season. This is a terrific finishing program. There are so many things we can do. We’re just hard to beat right now. I just wish we could keep playing. Unfortunately, we don’t get to. Maybe someday there will be a chance, but not now.”

Well Carrol it’s really simple. Don’t lose to crappy teams like Oregon State during the season and you’ll get to play for the championship every year.