This year’s Rose Bowl featured two asinine displays of classlessness on the field. Surprisingly, neither act drew a flag.

• In the second half, Southern Cal receiver Dwayne Jarrett caught a pass and streaked down the field for a touchdown. As he neared the end zone, Jarrett looked at the nearest Michigan defender and pointed at him. The taunt, normally an almost automatic penalty in the college game, failed to draw a flag.
• Later in the game, Jarrett caught a pass for a first down. He sat up and dropped the ball in the lap of the Michigan defender sitting next to him. Again, there was no penalty.

(There also was a derivative end zone celebration that failed to draw a flag, but that seems to attract less attention these days; it’s harder to consider that a likely penalty now.)

Unfortunately, those incidents are representative of football culture. Also unfortunately, they are better for television’s demand for entertainment than they are for the game of football itself.

It’s worth noting that even the TV analysts were becoming irked by the actions of some of the USC players; they began wondering why the officials weren’t calling the penalties. It was a fine example of talking heads criticizing the result of their own medium.

Ah, well. It is apparent that one question was answered by Jarrett’s actions in the Rose Bowl. Forget his body and his work ethic: without a doubt, Jarrett’s attitude is ready to jump to the NFL.