by Todd Behrendt

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For most of its 95 years, we've had grand marshals, royal courts and the only parade still worth watching serving as prelude for the champions of the Pac-10 and the Big Ten squaring off in a game that once upon a time was a factor in determining who the best team in college football was.

But there's one new Granddaddy of a tradition that has worn out its welcome here in Pasadena — namely, USC clobbering the slobber out of some clearly overmatched Big Ten foe.

It happened for the third straight year Thursday, with No. 5 USC removing all suspense from the game with 24 unanswered second-quarter points, then coasting after halftime to a 38-24 win over No. 6 Penn State.

So complete was USC's domination, it's difficult to argue with USC head coach Pete Carroll when he used his postgame press conference to make a case for his Trojans as the equal of the two teams that will play for the national championship on Jan. 8.

"With all due respect, those are two great programs (Florida and Oklahoma)," Carroll said, "I don't think anyone could beat the Trojans."

Well, certainly not anyone from the Big Ten.

For those of you not keeping score at home — and given the way USC has manhandled the Big Ten recently, I'd be shocked if any of you have bothered keeping score the last three years — the Trojans just became the first team in the 95 years they've been playing the Rose Bowl to win three straight. In fact, Carroll's Trojans have never lost to the Big Ten's best on New Year's Day, winning all four meetings by the average score of 36.8-18.3.

The only reason USC hasn't won five of the last six Rose Bowls? It's because in 2006, the Trojans didn't have the good fortune to play the Big Ten champ when the Rose Bowl hosted the BCS title game.

But you know what was more discouraging than the final outcome essentially being decided when Mark Sanchez hooked up with C.J. Gable on a 20-yard score just before halftime to put the Trojans up 31-7?

I actually thought this year might be different.

And I wasn't the only one.

"They certainly deserved to win it, but I'm a little disappointed we weren't a little bit more competitive," Penn State head coach Joe Paterno said.

That isn't just coachspeak, either. There was ample reason — at least until the second quarter of Thursday's game — to believe the 2009 Rose Bowl would be more competitive than the previous two.

Unlike 2007 and 2008, when USC got to play the Big Ten's second-place team because Ohio State had earned a spot in the BCS title game, the Trojans actually got the Big Ten's best shot this time around.

This wasn't any 9-3 Illinois team waiting for them. It was the No. 6 team in the country, a team — much like the Trojans themselves — who could have been playing for the national championship if not for an awkward stumble against an unranked conference opponent.

And lastly, the conventional wisdom leading up to Thursday's game was that the Trojans weren't particularly fired up to be at home for the holidays for yet another year.

Well, if that wasn't a fired-up USC team Thursday, I'd have hated to see what the Trojans would have done to the Nittany Lions if they had been properly motivated.

So if a Joe Paterno-coached, one-loss Penn State team is about as competitive against the Trojans as Stanford, then what hope does the rest of the Big Ten have as long as Carroll is able to resist the siren call of the NFL?

For a quarter, it looked as if Penn State was at least going to acquit itself and its beleaguered league admirably. Initially, the Nittany Lions' defense appeared to be the Trojans' equal, forcing USC into a three-and-out on its first possession. Then after USC found the end zone (with a little help from a turnover-nullifying penalty), Penn State responded with a nine-play, 80-yard drive to tie the score at 7-7.

That's when the Trojans remembered where they were playing. And which conference was represented by the team on the other sideline.

USC needed just six plays and 2:37 to regain the lead for good on a six-yard touchdown run by quarterback Mark Sanchez.

And they were just getting started.

The Trojans would tack on 17 more points before halftime, scoring each time they had the ball. On the other side of the ball, Penn State had as many turnovers in the second quarter as it had first downs — one apiece.

The halftime stats (and given that this game was over after the first 30 minutes, the halftime stats are really the only ones you need to focus on) were staggering.

USC went into the locker room with 31 points and 341 yards in total offense. Or to put it in other terms, more points than Penn State had given up in any game this season and more yardage than all but two Nittany Lions opponents had managed in 60 minutes of action.

Those 31 first-half points were the most USC had scored in its record 33 appearances in the Rose Bowl. And they came against a Penn State team that went into the game ranked in the top 10 in the country in rushing defense, scoring defense, pass efficiency and scoring defense.

Even Paterno all but admitted the game was done at halftime.

"It thought it had gotten away from us," Paterno said. "You know, you could see we were struggling. We weren't playing well. We were grasping at certain things. Yeah, I felt it was kind of slipping away from us when they started to get into rhythm and we couldn't get them out of sync."

That would be the all-time leader in bowl wins and appearances, with his team playing in a 23rd New Year's Day bowl, conceding you could have changed the channel at the game's midway point.

It's safe to say Citi didn't get its money's worth (and technically speaking, isn't that our money's worth?) from this one.

"I just wish we could keep playing," Carroll said. "Unfortunately, we don't get to."

No, they'll just have to settle for knowing they own the Big Ten.