College Football / Richard Hoffer : Bowl Speculation Can Keep You Guessing

The major bowls have struck an informal agreement among themselves that is only slightly less complicated than the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. But for now, all you need to know is that USC plays the Southeastern Conference champion in the Sugar Bowl, if not Michigan in the Rose Bowl, and UCLA plays Arkansas in the Cotton, if not the Big Ten champion at home.

And whatever bowl fails to land the Pac-10 runner-up gets Florida State, or possibly West Virginia, as a consolation prize.

This was all determined once top-ranked Notre Dame let two New Year’s Day bowls--actually Jan. 2 bowls this time--know it was not interested in their propositions and was considering only the Fiesta and Orange bowls.

The Sugar and Cotton, which had made no bones about their romance with the Irish, then went to work on the Pac-10 runner-up, the loser of the Nov. 19 game between USC and UCLA.

As to which would go where and the reasons therefore, well, as the Cotton Bowl’s Jim Brock says, “It’s only spec’lation.”

But Athletic Director Peter Dalis of UCLA, whose team has 1 loss and 2 games to play, says it’s a little more than that.

“The Cotton was prepared to offer UCLA an invitation with an 8-3 record,” Dalis said. “The Sugar was not. So, a bird in the hand. . . “

This evidently outweighed a vote by UCLA players to play in the Sugar Bowl. An additional factor in the decision to play in Dallas’ winter cold is the presence of six Texans on the Bruin team.

“Spec’lation is, they’d like more,” Brock added.

And, on the other end, USC Coach Larry Smith still has ties in the Sugar Bowl area from his days at Tulane.

In any event, a Pac-10 team with a possible Heisman Trophy winner is a coup for either of the two bowls, even if we are talking second choice here.

But the Sugar and Cotton--the Cotton has featured the Heisman winner in 3 of the last 4 years--knew they might be in business when UCLA beat Nebraska and USC beat Oklahoma and the eventual Pac-10 runner-up was pretty much ruled out as a possible Orange Bowl team. Who’d want to risk a rematch?

And then the Fiesta was ruled out by a Pac-10 policy that discourages outright competition with the Rose Bowl.

“I’ve spent more time on the West Coast than the last 6-7 years combined,” Brock said. “And I would say we now have an excellent opportunity.”

Of course, it’s just spec’lation.

More Bowls: The Fiesta Bowl is almost certain to bid for undefeated Notre Dame and No. 4 (and also undefeated) West Virginia and bill it as a national championship. But it is by no means a done deal.

“If it were, we wouldn’t have (No. 5) Florida State and West Virginia still in our mix,” said the Sugar Bowl’s Mickey Holmes. “Nothing’s tied down.”

Notre Dame is simply refusing to commit at this point. It’s determined to play the highest-ranking team available, as long as it’s not No. 3 and barely defeated Miami, of course. That means, if West Virginia stumbles, Notre Dame could go to Miami to play the Big Eight champion, the winner of the Oklahoma-Nebraska game.

That eventuality would force Miami out of town and to the Fiesta Bowl to play West Virginia, and send Florida State to either the Cotton or Sugar.

Holmes said: “What it amounts to, everybody stays in the mix. We know the bowls are protected and so are the teams. There’s too many things to consider. There’s still a ripple effect to be felt.”

Holmes noted that Notre Dame and USC will play after bowl bids are issued Nov. 19 and what looked like a national championship game when deals were struck could turn out to be just another bowl game.

“On Jan. 2, you could see a lot of those single-digit fingers in the air,” he said. “There’s more than a handful of possibilities, more close to beaucoup. “

See ya’ later, Gator: The Gator Bowl made an impressive run at Notre Dame, offering $3 million to the team for a game with West Virginia.

Nobody figured the Irish would take it seriously--and they didn’t really--since the Gator Bowl offers only ESPN exposure. The vast and sprawling community of Notre Dame fans make the possibility of anything but network exposure an affront.

On the other hand, said the Sugar Bowl’s Holmes: “The thing that did get my attention, and to a degree made it plausible, was handing out 30,000 tickets” to the school. “That’s gotta check your backswing.”

The Sugar Bowl, for example, provides each team with 12,500 tickets.

Illinois is still in the running for a Rose Bowl berth. It’s 4-1-1 in the Big Ten, tied with Michigan, which it plays this week. The Illini are hardly favorites--they’re 1-17-1 against the Wolverines--but you’ve got to like a team that has a quarterback, Jeff George, nicknamed the Sheriff.

Why the Sheriff?

Says senior tackle Mark McGowan, “Because he’s got a gun.”

Louisville Coach Howard Schnellenberger sat down to a conference call in advance of his team’s game with Western Kentucky and heard a Florida sportswriter ask him if he’d been contacted about the Florida job.

He had not, but so the rumors begin about the replacement of Galen Hall, whose Gators have lost 4 straight after starting 5-0.

Hall’s contract runs through 1991, but there have been reports that the athletic department has started the meter on him anyway. Athletic Director Bill Arnsparger has said, “We know of no reason at this time that would cause this contract not to be honored.”

As endorsements go, that’s hardly in the ringing category.