Flower Power: Pasadena's Rose Bowl grew from disaster to classic.(The Dallas Morning News)

Byline: Chip Brown

DALLAS _ Before the Rose Bowl became the Granddaddy of Them All, nestled at the foot of the San Andreas Mountains with its glorious sunshine and tense Pac-10 vs. Big Ten skirmishes, it was a nervous fund-raiser with such a disastrous outcome in 1902 that it was scrapped for almost a decade and a half.

Michigan racked up more than 600 yards rushing through three quarters and pounded Stanford so thoroughly in the first Tournament of Roses game, as it was then called, that Stanford refused to come out for the fourth quarter. The Cardinal's surrender was understandable considering the forward pass was still outlawed at that point, making big comebacks almost impossible.

"We're hoping to go out there and play well enough that they won't cancel the game for 14 years," Texas coach Mack Brown joked of his team's showdown Saturday with Michigan in Pasadena, Calif.

While Rose Bowl officials have done their best to embrace a first-ever Texas-Michigan matchup, they couldn't hide their dismay after learning Texas had passed California in the Bowl Championship Series standings. Texas' rise deprived the Rose from hosting a team from its "senior partner" conference for only the second time since 1920 and deprived Cal of its first trip to the game since 1959.

"Dismay is a very polite word," said Dave Davis, president and chief executive officer of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, which puts on the Rose Bowl …