Hoping to win, hop on a plane and get good news when they arrived back in New Orleans, the Saints instead headed home Sunday knowing their season was over.

Kick returner extraordinaire Devin Hester raced for a pair of TDs — one on a 64-yard punt return, another on a 55-yard pass — and the Chicago Bears beat the Saints 33-25, erasing New Orleans’ slim chances for the playoffs.

Eleven months ago the Saints’ season ended in the NFC Championship game with a 39-14 loss at Soldier Field that sent the Bears to the Super Bowl.

Now New Orleans was left to digest another loss on the same field — this time without making the postseason.

“They feel about the same,” said Drew Brees, who set an NFL record for completions in a single season — he finished with 443 — while attempting 60 passes Sunday. “If we had won this game we still might have had an opportunity for the playoffs.”

Saints coach Sean Payton didn’t see the similarities between the two disheartening losses.

“It is different. Different teams, different circumstances — an NFC championship game and 7-9,” he said. “It’s an irony that the season ended here.”

New Orleans needed to beat the Bears and have both the Redskins and Vikings lose Sunday in later games.

Now the two teams that were atop the NFC last season are both out in the cold.

Chicago (7-9), which lost the Super Bowl to the Colts, was eliminated from the postseason picture two weeks ago. The Bears won their final two games, their only two-game winning streak all year.

“Coming off the season we had last year, we were hoping for better things. But at the end of the day, we left off with a good note,” Hester said.

“Look at way we’re playing right now. We should have been doing that all season. It’s tough. But things happen.”

Hester now has four punt return TDS and two on kickoffs this season. Last year he had five total, three on punts and two on kickoffs — not counting one to start the Super Bowl.

After the Saints (7-9) went three-and-out on the first series of the second half, Steven Weatherford punted to Hester — a mistake. He went right and then quickly cut back left, found a seam and easily outraced would-be tacklers to put the Bears ahead 31-17.

“The punt plan was out of bounds. Period,” Payton said.

Brees and Marques Colston hooked up for two first-half touchdown passes. And Brees eclipsed the previous mark of 418 completions set by Rich Gannon in 2002, needing just 11 entering the game.

But Colston, who took several hard shots, hurt his left wrist when he hit it on a helmet and it swelled up so badly he couldn’t move it. He spent the second half on the sidelines, taking away the Saints’ chief threat. Running back Reggie Bush was out with a knee injury, and wide receiver Terrance Copper got a concussion Sunday.

“We came into the game with five receivers and by the time we got into the last couple of drives, we had only three,” Brees said. “It was one of those deals where we were just trying to survive at that point.”

Brees was 35-of-60 for 320 yards with three TDs.

Undrafted rookie free agent Pierre Thomas, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs and played his college ball at Illinois, gave the Saints a big lift, gaining 105 yards rushing and catching 12 passes for 121 yards.

Hester hauled in Orton’s long pass and split two defenders for the 55-yard score with 1:48 to go in the first half — 19 seconds after Brees threw his second TD pass of the game to Colston.

Colston made eight receptions in the first half and broke Joe Horn’s club record of 94 catches in a season, finishing with 98.

Brees found Colston wide open at the 14, and he ran it in for a 21-yard TD that made it 17-14 with 2:07 left in the half.

Adrian Peterson’s 9-yard halfback option pass to Bernard Berrian for a TD gave the Bears a 17-7 lead.

Brees tied the NFL record with his 10th completion, lofting a third-down pass to the end zone that Colston went up and grabbed for a 3-yard TD with 8:35 left in the half. The score cut the Bears lead to 10-7.

Brian Urlacher intercepted Brees’ second attempt of the game. The Bears had the ball at the Saints 21 before settling for Robbie Gould’s 39-yard field goal.

Chicago Pro Bowl linebacker Lance Briggs, playing in perhaps his final game for the Bears, made a vicious hit on Colston as he tried to catch a third-down pass on the next series. A minor skirmish ensued near the Bears bench.

But Chicago then got the ball on a punt and Orton drove the Bears 71 yards, zipping a 19-yard TD pass to Mark Bradley.

This would have been a perfect Rose Bowl for the USC Trojans, except for the one part they couldn’t control.

They couldn’t pick their opponent.

The sixth-ranked Trojans routed Illinois 49-17 on Tuesday and showed the rest of the country that, yes, maybe they are the best team in college football right now.

Certainly, a better test could have come against Georgia or Virginia Tech, or maybe next week against Ohio State in the national title game.

But the Rose Bowl wanted a Pac-10-Big Ten matchup, and the national title game didn’t want Southern California. So, it wound up being USC-Illinois in the Granddaddy of ‘Em All, and the Trojans made the Illini pay.

I would love to play one more,” defensive lineman Sedrick Ellis said. “I don’t think any team in the NCAA could beat us right now. Not Ohio, not LSU.”

Freshman tailback Joe McKnight finished with 170 of USC’s Rose Bowl-record 633 yards. The 49 points tied a record, too, and the blowout gave the Trojans 11 wins for an unprecedented sixth straight season.

They have arguably been the country’s best team over that span, and might have been the best this season, too. Lacking the playoff that coach Pete Carroll favors or the trip to the title game he lobbied for, the Trojans (11-2) will have to take this overwhelming display in Pasadena.

“Everything that was out there for us, we took,” Carroll said. “The rest of it is up for discussion. But would I love to still be playing right now? Sure would. We’d go out there any time, any place, any venue and throw our football out there and see what we could do.”

The game featured 1,078 total yards of offense. Despite the margin, things were truly competitive for a brief moment. Illinois’ Rashard Mendenhall broke a 79-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter to trim what had been a three-touchdown deficit to 21-10.

Minutes later, Mendenhall scooted 55 yards with a screen pass from Juice Williams, and Ron Zook’s 13th-ranked Illini (9-4) looked as if they might really complete the impossible dream, from 2-19 over the last two years to Rose Bowl champions.

But two plays later, Kaluka Maiava popped the ball out of receiver Jacob Willis’ hands and USC’s Brian Cushing won a scramble in the end zone, one of four Illinois turnovers

You can’t turn the ball over,” Zook said. “Whether they were forced or we weren’t playing with consistency and the intensity you have to have, I’m not sure.”

Moments later, came the play of the game, when John David Booty threw a sloppy lateral to McKnight, who didn’t catch it, but was able to scoop it up on the bounce and run 65 yards. McKnight was chased down by defensive back Vontae Davis — yes Zook is recruiting some speed to Champaign — but four plays later, Booty hit Fred Davis with a 2-yard touchdown pass.

That made it 28-10 and the rout was on.

“You can’t imagine how much work it takes for John to throw it like that so it bounces just right,” Carroll joked. “But Joe made something out of it. It was exhilarating, the speed he came out with and the play he made.”

Booty threw for 255 yards and three scores to set a Rose Bowl record with seven career TDs.

USC linebacker Rey Maualuga had three sacks, an interception and a forced fumble for a defense that allowed only 79 yards in the first half.

McKnight, hyped as USC’s next Reggie Bush, finished with 125 yards rushing and 45 yards receiving, and his broken play in the third quarter wasn’t the only time the Trojans made something crazy and unexpected happen.

It started in the first quarter, when Booty lateraled to Garrett Green, who is listed as a receiver-quarterback, and Green threw crossfield to Desmond Reed for a 34-yard touchdown strike and a 14-0 lead. Reed was so open, he could’ve walked into the end zone, but instead did a leaping front tuck. Stuck the landing, too, but got six points instead of a perfect 10.0, and also was docked a 15-yard unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty.

That made no difference, and in the end, Illinois’ nice little stretch of competitiveness in the third quarter was only a blip, as well.

Mendenhall finished with 214 total yards in what could be the last college game for the junior. Williams had 245 yards passing for the Illini, whose last Rose Bowl trip came 24 years ago and ended in a 45-9 loss to quarterback Rick Neuheisel and UCLA.

The score this time was similar, and not totally unexpected.

The Illini were 13 1/2 -point underdogs — biggest of any of this season’s 32 bowl games — and the final score only added fuel to the fire of those who criticized the Rose Bowl for insisting on its traditional conference pairing.

Many said the Big Ten was weak this season, and while the title game will be the ultimate test of that, this certainly didn’t help the image.

“Not good. This hurts,” said Zook, whose team beat Ohio State 28-21 in November. “I told our guys we were representing the conference and we let the Big Ten down. I think we can compete, but we have to do it.”

Meanwhile, USC was said to be playing the best football of anyone when the regular season ended, and didn’t do anything to debunk that theory.

Carroll, a proponent of a playoff, lobbied for the Trojans to have LSU’s spot in next week’s national title game, the first to include a team with two losses. But a 24-23 loss to 41-point underdog Stanford in October was USC’s undoing.

On this day at the sunsplashed Rose Bowl, it was hard to imagine the Trojans losing to Stanford.

Not that they were perfect.

Early in the game, a snap sailed over punter Greg Woidneck’s head and he had to scramble to get off a 20-yard punt. Later, Justin Harrison picked off Booty’s pass and returned it to the USC 20, but Illinois couldn’t score off that. Also in the first half, Harrison pulverized receiver Vidal Hazelton and sent the ball flying out, only to redirect into the waiting hands of McKnight.

The common denominator in all was that was that Illinois gave itself chances to make big plays but couldn’t cash in on any.

“In college football, it’s all about momentum and momentum swings,” Mendenhall said. “You’ve got to capitalize when you get a chance.”

The Trojans did, and earned a chance to celebrate — or maybe wonder about what might have been.

“Let the argument go out there for the people battling with the BCS process to figure this thing out,” Carroll said. “I have no answer for them. I just wish we could keep going.”