College Football / Richard Hoffer : Alabama, Penn State Will Be Fighting It Out Saturday for . . . Uh, No. 2

Saturday’s lead game--Alabama against Penn State--is pretty much like last week’s. Two undefeated football rivals will play, but for what?

As was the case last week, when Iowa and Michigan danced for Rose Bowl consideration, there is something at stake. But neither Alabama nor Penn State, two national contenders, can make much of a move on top-ranked Miami. Not now, maybe never.

You have to think that Miami, if it remains top-ranked, will stay home in the Orange Bowl, where it will play either Nebraska or Oklahoma on New Year’s night. And the Hurricanes have already thumped the Sooners. Michigan, if it continues undefeated, and the Alabama-Penn State winner have little shot of forcing a showdown with Miami.

Miami could conceivably choose to meet an undefeated Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl, or an undefeated Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. But don’t count on it, since money talks.

Still, this looms as an interesting game at Tuscaloosa, Ala., Saturday. We will find out how good sixth-ranked Penn State is. The Nittany Lions, though assured their six victories, have not had a killer schedule. Alabama, 7-0 with 13 victories in a row, has played a substantially sterner schedule. Of course, it’s like that every year, even last year when Penn State, on four field goals, rolled the Tide.

“This is a great football team coming in,” Alabama Coach Ray Perkins said of Penn State. “When you look at the number of starters coming back off a team that came within one game of winning the national championship, I don’t think you can draw any other conclusion.”

Meanwhile Penn State’s Joe Paterno is downplaying the game’s importance. While admitting, “It’s a big game, a meaningful game,” he added that if Penn State lost, “it’s not the end of the world. I may have to duck the alumni and the fans for a while, but other than that, I don’t think I’ll have that kind of problem with the football team.”

So goes a season when almost everyone is playing for No. 2

Interim Bowl: That’s what they called the Wisconsin-Northwestern game, which matched two apparent lame-duck coaches. On the one hand was Wisconsin’s Jim Hilles, whose record is now 2-5. On the other was the loser, Northwestern’s 2-4 coach, Francis Peay. Of the two, Peay sounds unhappiest about being interim. He’s steamed. Wants out.

Peay, who took over when Dennis Green abruptly quit to take a pro job, is angry that he was not given permanent custody of the job, or at least stronger consideration. He said the uncertainty of his job status has caused him and his team problems ever since it beat Army last month. “I don’t think I was ever seriously considered for this job,” he said. “And I won’t accept it under the current set of circumstances. I don’t think those are going to change.”

So he doesn’t want any job he’s not being considered for? Actually, reports are that Peay, a five-year assistant to Green, is fed up with the losing tradition of Northwestern and the continuing complacency.

School officials, meanwhile, are baffled. They say he was their choice all along. “Francis’ decision was puzzling,” school President Arnold Weber said. “Coaches are a different breed.”

College Football Notes The Pacific 10 has five teams--Washington, Arizona State, Arizona, UCLA and Stanford--listed in the news services’ top 20. That’s more than any other conference. . . . The Big Ten may not be as well represented there, but the conference is still good box office. The league has averaged 93% attendance capacity through 36 games. That includes 24 sellouts. . . . It seems apparent that coaches’ sons make good quarterbacks. There’s Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, son of Western Michigan Coach Jack, Alabama’s Mike Shula, son of Miami Dolphin Coach Don, and Fresno State’s Kevin Sweeney, son of Jim. Let them throw the ball past Michigan defensive back Doug Mallory, son of Indiana Coach Bill. . . . You’re not reading much about these guys, but Temple’s Paul (Boo Boo) Palmer and Colorado State’s Steve Bartalo both crashed the career 4,000-yard barrier recently. Palmer, all 5 feet 10 inches of him, set a two-game record last week, rushing for 299 yards. That and 349 yards from the week before broke Rueben Mayes’ record. Palmer can break a three-game mark with 187 against Syracuse this weekend. Along with Palmer, Bartalo joined the ranks of 26 players to have rushed for 4,000 yards or more. . . . More numbers: Washington’s Jeff Jaeger needs only five field goals to break UCLA’s John Lee’s national record of 79. . . . The NCAA’s second-leading rusher behind Palmer is a freshman at Minnesota. Darrell Thompson, a fourth-string tailback two months ago, has rushed for 802 yards. . . . Only one quarterback in the Big Eight, Iowa State’s Alex Espinoza, has completed more than half his passes. Of course, this is in a league where the quarterback of one of the best two teams, Jamelle Holieway of Oklahoma, has completed just 15 passes, while throwing 5 interceptions. Nebraska quarterback Steve Taylor has completed 32 in 6 games. . . . Updating the list of rumored replacements for Texas Coach Fred Akers: Jimmy Johnson of Miami, Grant Teaff of Baylor and Jim Wacker of TCU. . . . The Cotton Bowl has reason to bemoan its affiliation with the Southwest Conference this year. The conference could very well be represented with a team that has two SWC losses. Worse, because SMU, 4-0 in the league, is ineligible for the bowl, a second-place team would not likely be among the nation’s top 20. . . . Iowa’s Hayden Fry tends to think he’s always odd man out in Big Ten doings, which historically favor Michigan and Ohio State. You be the judge. The conference has voted not to count 12th games played by title contenders Michigan and Ohio State. By eliminating Ohio State’s loss to Alabama and Michigan’s certain victory at Hawaii, the decision would seem to favor Michigan. Even if the Hawkeyes beat Ohio State and Ohio State later beats Michigan, it will still be the Wolverines who go to the Rose Bowl, identical records of the three teams notwithstanding. . . . The Florida-Georgia game, and the doings before and after, have long been known as the “world’s largest cocktail party.” Small wonder the goal posts go down after every such game. But this year, Jacksonville City Council members have voted to award the Gator Bowl goal posts to the winner, even mail the $3,500 pair. Leave your chain saws at home. . . . Everybody figured that the New Mexico-Utah game would be an offensive blowout. Sure enough, New Mexico gained 501 yards to Utah’s 616. That’s about what they average. But who would have thought New Mexico would win the 47-43 game with a goal-line stand? . . . Two Georgia running backs have gone down with knee injuries, so Coach Vince Dooley went to the defensive line to get a replacement--250-pound Hiawatha Berry. If he gets stopped at the line of scrimmage, the tackler presumably is awarded a CramBerry. . . . Here we go again: Indiana was 4-0 last season until Ohio State crushed the Hoosiers, who finished 4-7. Again Indiana was 4-0 until it met Ohio State. Now the Hoosiers stand at 4-2 and play Michigan this week. . . . Tough times at Georgia, Part II: UGA IV, the bulldog who is Georgia’s mascot, fell out of a bed in an Athens motel before last week’s game. The dog underwent surgery to repair torn ligaments. “The big problem,” sports information director Claude Felton said, “is that his older brother, Otto, is going to have to substitute for the next few games and he has absolutely no game experience. In fact, Otto’s never been to a football game.”