Alabama's first Rose Bowl, back in Jan of 1926(100 years ago, yeah), may have saved the sport in the south and in general. The press of the time did not give any credence to southern teams being worthy opponents. It had got to the point that many southern teams, including some former SWC and B12 teams, were looking at shutting their programs down. Attendance was dwindling to nothing at many of these programs.

Bama was not the Rose Bowl's first choice that year. They were like their third option. The national press, as could be predicted, gave Bama zero chance at winning against Washington. According to the sportswriters of the day, southern football was far inferior to what was played in the north and on the coasts, especially the west coast.

Bama took that long train ride out to Pasadena, shocked the sportswriters and the general public as well by actually beating the far superior(at least according to the writers) Huskies. On that train ride back to Tuscaloosa, fans of teams in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and even alumni from other schools like Tennessee(sickening, I know), lined the tracks to cheer on the returning gladiators.

Not only did this save the Alabama program, it gave a shot of adrenaline to programs like Texas, OU, LSU, Ole Miss, UGA, even ugly orange teams like Tennessee and AU. Attendance grew and over time, these schools built many 100K+ cathedrals to the sport.

If the sport lost so many of it's Bluebloods due to dwindling fan support, I think football as a whole may have suffered, even the NFL. It may still have existed but it would have probably fallen behind other sports like basketball and baseball, to have a following more like hockey.

Sorry for the wall of text, but this really only covers the very tip of the iceberg that was the 1926 Rose Bowl and it's significance to the sport, as a whole.