BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Don’t let the elastic waistbands fool you. When Michigan State’s football players paraded down the red carpet in their green-and-white traveling sweats, serenaded by a band playing the university’s fight song, they had not come to Lawry’s 58th Beef Bowl to devour the competition — or the racks of prime rib that were waiting to be sliced.

The Spartans had arrived, mostly, in the name of moderation.

“I’m eating a little beef, not too much — but the corn is great,” said Denzel Drone, describing what would seem like hors d’oeuvres for a powerfully built 6-foot-2, 245-pound defensive end.

The Beef Bowl has long had a place on the itineraries of Rose Bowl teams. Conceived by one of the owners of Lawry’s, a well-known prime rib restaurant in Beverly Hills, the Beef Bowl quickly became an informal eating competition, and in many respects it has changed little over the decades.

To the Michigan State secondary coach Harlan Barnett, who played for the Spartans in their last Rose Bowl, 26 years ago, it all looked familiar: The restaurant’s carvers were wearing the same tall white hats, the servers were wearing the same nurselike uniforms with sensible white shoes, and the first slab of prime rib was still sliced almost precisely at 16 ounces.