COLLEGE FOOTBALL NOTES : ACC May Get Squeezed Out of Citrus Unless N.C. St. Wins Title

Saturday’s Virginia-North Carolina State game in Raleigh, N.C., could go a long way toward determining this year’s Atlantic Coast Conference champion.

But only a victory by the Wolfpack would realistically keep the ACC in the running for a bid to the Florida Citrus Bowl in Orlando. The ACC is in the second year of a four-year deal with the Citrus Bowl, a contract that stipulates that in years Nos. 2 and 4, the bowl’s selection committee can go outside the league for a host school as long as it can get a higher-ranked team.

As of this week, North Carolina State is only ranked 18th.

“If there’s a significant difference in the rankings (between North Carolina State and a non-ACC school), we’ll lean toward the higher-ranked team,” Chuck Rohe, the Citrus Bowl’s executive director, said this week. “It doesn’t put the ACC in a bind.”

As part of the agreement, the Citrus Bowl will inform the ACC of its plans by Nov. 15, which is 10 days before the bowl invitations can be announced. But North Carolina State, which plays at Duke next week, appears to be the only team from the conference to be a realistic contender. Clemson, which beat Oklahoma in the Citrus Bowl last season, is ranked 21st.

ACC Commissioner Gene Corrigan said he gets a phone call every Monday morning from Citrus Bowl officials to update him. Though he admits the ACC is in a difficult situation, considering the number of strong teams in the Southeast this season, he says the league contenders will continue to get serious consideration from the Citrus Bowl.

“Unless all the teams fall apart,” Corrigan said. “At this time of year, everybody is looking way beyond what they’re going to get. As you get closer to the end, things become more realistic.”

The jockeying for position is heating up. Consider some of these possibilities:

--Right now, the Orange and Sugar bowls appear to be the leading contenders for the national championship game. Though it has generally been assumed since Notre Dame beat Michigan back in September that the game would be played between the Fighting Irish and the Big Eight champion in Miami, that no longer seems to be certain.

“They will have played in the Orange Bowl (against Miami Nov. 25), and it’s not a pleasant thing for them,” said Don Meyers, chairman of the Fiesta Bowl’s selection committee. “It’s going to be nasty this year. If they win, that’s great, but they don’t want to go back. If they lose, they certainly don’t want to go back.”

--The one problem with Notre Dame accepting a Sugar Bowl invitation is waiting to see if Alabama finishes unbeaten. The Crimson Tide won’t end its season until a Dec. 2 visit to Auburn.

“Let’s say Notre Dame stays undefeated and Colorado stayed undefeated,” Sugar Bowl executive director Mickey Holmes says. “Then let’s say Alabama gets through its Southern Mississippi game (Nov. 18) undefeated. Then Notre Dame would have a decision to make between us and the Orange Bowl. I think the idea of playing Alabama would have a lot of appeal for Notre Dame.”

Saturday’s game between host second-ranked Colorado (8-0) and third-ranked Nebraska (8-0) has an interesting quarterback duel. Both Damian Hagan of the Buffaloes and the Cornhuskers’ Gerry Gdowski have a chance to run for 1,000 yards and throw for 1,000 yards this season. It has been done three times: by Bart Weiss of Air Force in 1985, Reggie Collier of Southern Mississippi in 1981 and Drake’s Johnny Bright in 1950.

For last week’s trip to Oklahoma, Colorado had a first-class airplane seat, a spot at the training table and a locker kept empty in memory of its late quarterback, Sal Aunese, who died of stomach cancer in September. Even more eerie was the way Aunese’s number (8) figured into the story line. The victory gave Colorado an 8-0 record. It was head coach Bill McCartney’s 88th game in his eighth year at Colorado and the school’s 888th game overall.

In last week’s 20-3 victory over Oklahoma, the Buffalos were penalized when injured Colorado running back Eric Bieniemy ran onto the field to celebrate with his teammates after one of the touchdowns. Bieniemy, who is sidelined with a broken fibula, is listed as questionable for this week’s showdown.

McCartney said, “We’re not going to play him if he’s limping. He wants to play. I’m going to have to chain him to the bench if I don’t let him play.”

Iowa State coach Jim Walden has opinions on nearly everything, so it wasn’t surprising for him to make his own prediction about the Colorado-Nebraska game. “Nebraska’s got to throw the ball and they’re not going to want to,” Walden said. “If you don’t throw the ball on Colorado, they’re going to beat you into submission.”

The eating habits of some other Big Eight coaches came into question this week. When asked about the difference between being a head coach and an assistant, Kansas State’s Bill Snyder said, “Eating. I don’t eat lunch or dinner when I’m at work. I don’t eat breakfast. I eat one meal when I go home.”

That might be one meal more than Kansas’ Glen Mason is going to get at home for a while. When told of Snyder’s comments, Mason said, “I don’t go home to eat. If you ate my wife’s cooking, you wouldn’t go home to eat, either.”

Forget about eating. Mason might be living in his office after those remarks.

One week after Minnesota’s Fred Foggie ran back a blocked field goal 98 yards against Indiana, Illinois strong safety Quintin Parker broke the short-lived Big 10 record. Parker’s 100-yard runback of a blocked extra point in last week’s 32-9 victory over Wisconsin, which was worth two points (a defensive point after touchdown), also set the National Collegiate Athletic Association record.

It took three years, but Ohio State quarterback Greg Frey finally got back at an old high school rival. Seems that when both he and Minnesota’s Scott Schaffner were high school seniors in Cincinnati, Frey threw for 487 yards for St. Xavier in a game against Schaffner’s Moeller team. Moeller won, 56-42.

In last week’s 41-37 victory for the Buckeyes, a game in which they came back from a 31-0 second-quarter deficit, Frey threw for 327 yards, three touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions. Ohio State equaled an NCAA record for the largest comeback, set by Maryland in a 1984 win over Miami.

“I’ve been in some pretty wild ones, especially that one against Moeller,” Frey said. “I’m glad I played the way I did. I had something to make up for.”

Quote of the Week: “They really are good on defense.” Georgia Coach Ray Goff on Temple, which is 0-8 and giving up 41 points and 393 yards a game.