Bowling for Dollars and Spare Change

And on the third day, the pig bladder rested, and millions across the land were thrust into the Valley Of Despair . . .

* Matchup for today’s Cold Turkey Bowl (which, by the way, is not sponsored by Butterball)--No. College (0-0) vs. Not U. (0-0). Kickoff: About Time.

* Tuesday night’s Fiesta Bowl was climactic, all right, the bowl to end all bowls. Or, anyway, the bowl to end the Las Vegas, Aloha, Copper, Alamo, Sun, Jim Walter Homes Heritage, Poulan Weedeater Independence, Plymouth Holiday, St. Jude Liberty, Carquest, Peach, Nokia Sugar, Outback, Toyota Gator, CompUSA Florida Citrus, Cotton, Rose, Fedex Orange and Tostitos Fiesta bowls.

* Did we miss a bowl? The Freedom Bowl, yes. But I repeat the question: Did we miss it?

* The Rose Bowl was a good bit of fun, a refreshing argument in favor of the preservation of the Save The Bowls Anti-Coalition Coalition, and, cross fingers, a final exorcism for the dozens--it seemed like thousands--of Northwestern journalism school grads now covering college football for the nation’s daily newspapers. Northwestern made the Rose Bowl. Yeah, we heard. Now go home. Maybe take a vacation. And don’t forget not to write.

* Good thing Northwestern only makes it out here every 50 years or so.

* Good thing, too, Nebraska grads don’t know how to type.

* Will the last Northwestern alumnus to leave Pasadena please take Gary Barnett with him? If only it were that easy. This time next week, very likely, the Wildcats will have lost the football game to USC and their football coach to UCLA. They aren’t the first Midwestern tourists to be mugged during a visit to L.A., but twice?

* Barnett’s decision: Come out to Westwood, stay warm, bask in the heartfelt gratitude of the Donahue-bashing masses, revive a sleeping giant, and have a yearly crack at USC--or spend the next 12 years in Chicago, attempting to recapture the ghost of ’95. Two more words to be hunted and pecked on the purple-and-white-festooned laptop keyboard: No Brainer.

* Before 1995, Barnett’s record at Northwestern was 8-24-1. That’s one reason to go. Wisconsin, post-1993. That’s another.

* Beating Northwestern--boy, that made John Robinson’s year. Have you ever seen a victorious Rose Bowl coach more ebullient, more get-down-and-kiss-the-sod giddy? Robinson looked like he had just seen film from the 1989 NFC championship game. “Let’s get outta here!” Robinson kept instructing players in between postgame questions from Lynn Swann, currently of ABC and formerly of USC. It was almost enough to make one wish for a rematch in ’97. Almost.

* True tale: Sportswriter dials directory assistance in St. Louis, asks for the Rams office phone number. Operator: “Oh, the Rams.”

Sportswriter: “You sound like you’re pretty excited over a 7-9 football team.”

Operator: “I’m a season ticket-holder. [Pause] You wanna buy them?”

* Brett Favre, NFL MVP. Two years ago, Favre was a restricted free agent the Rams briefly considered signing as a replacement for Jim Everett. How briefly? Until the Rams took a look at Favre’s salary. So Favre re-upped with the Packers and signed a multiyear contract prior to the 1994 season. And the Rams signed Chris Miller.

* Now that Favre has won the award, let’s see him earn it. For the Packers, the road to the Super Bowl, most likely, runs through San Francisco and then Dallas. If Favre goes 2-0 in those two, they’ll have to rename Lambeau Field.

* A Green Bay-Kansas City matchup, 30 years after the original, is the Super Bowl pairing most non-partisans are rooting for. And the matchup they’re rooting against? Buffalo-anybody.

* Three of the four NFC semifinalists are coached by George Seifert, Mike Holmgren and Ray Rhodes. It wasn’t Joe Montana who won all those Super Bowls for Bill Walsh; it was Walsh’s assistants.

* Defenses coached by Don Shula and Wayne Fontes gave up a total of 95 points in the first round of the playoffs. Why do so many of the great ones overstay their welcomes?

* Buddy Ryan, two years and out in Arizona. Yeah, there was a winner in town. Usually, it was the team that flew in that weekend to play the Cardinals.

* This Sunday, Nolan Ryan resurfaces on television as . . . host of “Prime Sports Outdoors.” Yes, another cable hunting and fishing show. This one needs a hook (so to speak), so how about sports celebrity guests? How about Ryan and Ryan, Nolan and Buddy, fishing side by side on a pier. Buddy to Nolan: “Nollie? I love ya, man.” Nolan to Buddy: “Sorry, Buddy, but you’re not getting another coaching job.”

* Just once, I’d like to see Oliver Stone try his hand at producing an NFL broadcast. There’d be lots of slow motion. Helmet cams. Ankle cams. Cleat cams. One out of every eight plays filmed in grainy black and white. Booming kettle drums every first down. Quarterback completes a touchdown pass and there’s a dramatized flashback to a defining moment in his past, maybe 20 years earlier, with our young hero slowly clawing a forefinger through the dirt outside his parent’s modest home--”OK, Jimmy, you go long!” And, there’d be no final score. Stone would decide who actually won at a much later date.

* Last Nebraska football joke of the season (a promise): New law has been passed in California that should greatly enhance Tom Osborne’s West Coast recruiting operation. Three strikes and you’re a Cornhusker.