Bowl Alliance

WASHINGTON -- It flat out wasn't fair, wide receiver Richard Peace told sympathetic senators yesterday, that he and other University of Wyoming players could only watch on TV last winter as lower-ranked teams played in postseason bowl games."

There will be another distraction for the nation's highly ranke college football teams this week, another reason for their already-crazed fans to be driven deeper into a frenzy over the last four weeks of the season.Introducing the Bowl Championship Series poll, otherwise known The Most Convoluted Way To Crown A National Champion Ever Devised.The BCS grew out of the 3-year-old Bowl Alliance and its equally short-lived predecessor, the Bowl Coalition. It is a confederation of the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls.

NEW YORK -- Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said here yesterday that chances were remote of a New Year's Day bowl alliance starting this year rather than next year as originally planned.Speaking at his league's basketball Media Day, Tranghese called Tuesday's report by The Associated Press "a non-issue."The report suggested that officials from the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Cotton bowls were considering a move to wait until after Florida State played Florida Nov. 30 to extend their invitations, rather than going ahead on Nov. 17."

Saturday was a sad day for the bowl alliance and a happy day for the Rose Bowl.In the last cycle of its current three-year agreement, the bowl alliance is trying to match the nation's two top-ranked teams in a national-championship game. But the Big Ten and Pacific-10 conferences, which send their champions to the Rose Bowl, are not alliance members.The bowl alliance absorbed several body blows in Week 3, with the Big 12 Conference serving as the main victim. Teams from the Big Ten and Pac-10 recorded impressive and shocking victories at home and on the road.

A bowl alliance formed to enhance the chances of a national championship game in college football was completed yesterday, with the Big East and the Atlantic Coast Conference declining a lucrative invitation to have their champions meet in the Blockbuster Bowl.Signing was expected last month of the alliance among the Sugar, Orange, Cotton and Fiesta bowls, but that was postponed when the Blockbuster Bowl tried to muscle in with a record $4.3 million-per-team offer for a matchup of the Big East and ACC champions.

If college football's Bowl Alliance were a Christmas present, you would take it back to the store."This thing is brand-new," you would tell the clerk, "and it doesn't work."The Alliance was supposed to render obsolete the annual argument over who is No. 1, but the situation is messier than ever this year.Top-ranked Florida State has to play its bowl game against a team it already has beaten.Florida State and second-ranked Arizona State, both undefeated, aren't playing each other.And four teams -- four!

College footballOne of the last obstacles to a guaranteed national championship game in college football could be cleared this week. Presidents of the Pac-10 universities will discuss a plan that would allow the Rose Bowl to join the college bowl alliance.Oregon athletic director Bill Moos said he expects the presidents to approve the proposal, removing a major roadblock in efforts to guarantee a postseason matchup between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams. The Pac-10 and Big Ten are the only major conferences that are not a part of the bowl alliance.

COLLEGE PARK -- Maryland's football team hasn't been to a postseason game since 1990, but its athletic department has still reaped the benefits of the Bowl Alliance.A year ago, Maryland balanced its budget for the first time in a decade, and yesterday athletic director Debbie Yow announced an operating profit for fiscal year 1996 of $594,440.The new upper deck at Byrd Stadium helped the Terps to the biggest attendance increase in the nation, but much of the nearly $1 million in additional football revenue was attributable to the Atlantic Coast Conference's profit-sharing of bowl payouts.

Saturday was a sad day for the bowl alliance and a happy day for the Rose Bowl.In the last cycle of its current three-year agreement, the bowl alliance is trying to match the nation's two top-ranked teams in a national-championship game. But the Big Ten and Pacific-10 conferences, which send their champions to the Rose Bowl, are not alliance members.The bowl alliance absorbed several body blows in Week 3, with the Big 12 Conference serving as the main victim. Teams from the Big Ten and Pac-10 recorded impressive and shocking victories at home and on the road.

The winner of Saturday's Army-Navy game in Philadelphia could receive an invitation to play Auburn in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., on New Year's Eve; it appears to depend, for the most part, on whether Notre Dame decides if it is interested in participating as the at-large team."

WASHINGTON -- It flat out wasn't fair, wide receiver Richard Peace told sympathetic senators yesterday, that he and other University of Wyoming players could only watch on TV last winter as lower-ranked teams played in postseason bowl games."

If college football's Bowl Alliance were a Christmas present, you would take it back to the store."This thing is brand-new," you would tell the clerk, "and it doesn't work."The Alliance was supposed to render obsolete the annual argument over who is No. 1, but the situation is messier than ever this year.Top-ranked Florida State has to play its bowl game against a team it already has beaten.Florida State and second-ranked Arizona State, both undefeated, aren't playing each other.And four teams -- four!

The winner of Saturday's Army-Navy game in Philadelphia could receive an invitation to play Auburn in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., on New Year's Eve; it appears to depend, for the most part, on whether Notre Dame decides if it is interested in participating as the at-large team."

COLLEGE PARK -- Maryland's football team hasn't been to a postseason game since 1990, but its athletic department has still reaped the benefits of the Bowl Alliance.A year ago, Maryland balanced its budget for the first time in a decade, and yesterday athletic director Debbie Yow announced an operating profit for fiscal year 1996 of $594,440.The new upper deck at Byrd Stadium helped the Terps to the biggest attendance increase in the nation, but much of the nearly $1 million in additional football revenue was attributable to the Atlantic Coast Conference's profit-sharing of bowl payouts.

Given the choice between watching local sports history and athletic competition of a global variety Saturday night, Baltimoreans linked arms with the world, but the decision wasn't clear-cut.The penultimate night of Olympic competition from Atlanta, which included the men's basketball gold-medal game, posted a 13.8 rating and 26 share of the audience on Channel 11, according to Sharon Walz, the station's ratings researcher and this week's sole and official "Media Watch" ratings provider.That was the lowest local posting of the Games, but easily understood, for at the same time, the Ravens were playing their inaugural game in Baltimore, an exhibition contest against Philadelphia, which drew a 10.4/18 for Channel 54.Nationally, NBC announced that the Olympics averaged a 21.6 rating and 41 share, making these Summer Games the most widely watched in the United States since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which averaged a 23.2/44.

College footballOne of the last obstacles to a guaranteed national championship game in college football could be cleared this week. Presidents of the Pac-10 universities will discuss a plan that would allow the Rose Bowl to join the college bowl alliance.Oregon athletic director Bill Moos said he expects the presidents to approve the proposal, removing a major roadblock in efforts to guarantee a postseason matchup between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams. The Pac-10 and Big Ten are the only major conferences that are not a part of the bowl alliance.

MIAMI -- When Miami joined the Big East last winter, one of the first things Mike Tranghese did was try to get his league affiliated with a New Year's Day bowl game."

TEMPE, Ariz. -- John Junker made only one promise."There will be no elephants," the Fiesta Bowl's executive director said recently about the game's halftime festivities. "It'll just be marching bands and a football game."But tomorrow night's national championship game between top-ranked Nebraska (11-0) and No. 2 Florida (12-0) at Sun Devil Stadium isn't just about marching bands and football. It's about corporate America and television ratings. And about money.Though it hasn't quite reached the status of the Final Four, give it time.

TEMPE, Ariz. -- John Junker made only one promise."There will be no elephants," the Fiesta Bowl's executive director said recently about the game's halftime festivities. "It'll just be marching bands and a football game."But tomorrow night's national championship game between top-ranked Nebraska (11-0) and No. 2 Florida (12-0) at Sun Devil Stadium isn't just about marching bands and football. It's about corporate America and television ratings. And about money.Though it hasn't quite reached the status of the Final Four, give it time.

The road to the national championship in college football is paved with good intentions, but as the discerning folks who run the Fiesta Bowl know, there is plenty of room for a detour.Will the nation's top two teams play for the title Jan. 2 in Tempe, Ariz., as drawn up by the newly created Bowl Alliance?Or will the champion be crowned in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year's Day, under the Rose Bowl banner?Heading into the first full weekend of the college season, those are questions that will have to wait for clarification.