Across cultures, the rose connotes a myriad of symbolic meanings. In the culture of contemporary Michigan football, its meaning is singular: The expectation.

Since the Michigan football class of 1975 lost to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, just two Michigan graduating classes have failed to play in Pasadena on New Year's Day. This class, which came to Ann Arbor with the 1997 Rose Bowl and National Championship fresh in its young mind, is trying not to be the second-straight class to come and go without smelling the Roses.

To do so would not be particularly surprising, but would also not be without struggle, challenge and accomplishment. This is a team that has played just one New Year's Day bowl game anywhere outside of Orlando (Miami, New Orleans, Tempe, Ari. and Pasadena would be the preferred locales) in the five years since the '97 Rose Bowl, and faces particularly rivalrous competition in this year's Big Ten. The two teams besides Michigan that are likely dreaming of New Year's in Southern California are longtime adversaries Ohio State and Michigan State. To complicate matters, both teams took games from the Wolverines in 2001, making last season the first since1987 that Michigan has fallen to both the Buckeyes and the Spartans in the same season.

But this Michigan team is one that went out in its first week and won a hard-fought game against what may be its toughest competition of the year, the Ninth-ranked Washington Huskies. The 31-29 last-second victory gave Michigan players the confidence (perhaps even the ethos) to set the bar as high as they would like - whether clearing that bar means landing in Pasadena, or maybe somewhere better.

"This could mean the national championship; you don't want to lose the first game," Perry said of the Washington game. "We came out there and played hard and expected to win."

The Rose Bowl bid goes to the Big Ten winner, of course, and there is an old Michigan adage that the real national championship is the Big Ten championship.

"Your football team - they have goals," Carr said. "They want to go to the Rose Bowl."

So ingrained is that philosophy that anything less is a disappointment. The Washington win sets the season off on the right foot, but it has no bearing on an intimidating Big Ten schedule that begins at the end of September. 1997 is a fading memory, and this team and this class have set their sights on Pasadena - right where every member of the Michigan culture expects it to be.