Weekend Is Stuffed With Enough Sports to Satisfy Appetite

The holiday sports feast continues through the weekend.

There are plenty of side dishes, including college and pro basketball, Skins Game golf and even, combined in one show, gymnastics and figure skating. But football is the main course.

CBS serves up Nebraska-Oklahoma today at 11:30 a.m., and there will be nine college games on television Saturday, highlighted by Notre Dame-USC at 5 p.m. on ABC.

The Trojans might have to do what they did in 1974--when they rallied from a 24-6 deficit to beat the Irish, 55-24--to top last weekend’s 45-42 victory over UCLA.

ABC announcer Keith Jackson, who has been around almost forever, worked both games, and both are in his top 10 for all-time best.

“The ’74 game was lopsided,” Jackson said. “But sure, it’s in my top 10.”

“(Last week’s USC-UCLA game is) one of two games I’ve worked this season to make my top 10,” Jackson said from his home in Sherman Oaks. “The other one is Michigan-Michigan State.”

That was the game in which Michigan State won, 28-27, when officials failed to call an obvious pass-interference penalty against the Spartans on Michigan’s two-point conversion try.

“You had a little bit of everything in that game,” Jackson said.

On the air, Jackson called last Saturday’s game one of the best of the USC-UCLA series.

“Still the best USC-UCLA game I’ve ever seen is 1967,” Jackson said, referring to the Trojans’ 21-20 victory over the Bruins in which O.J. Simpson scored on a 64-yard run in the fourth quarter. “You had the Rose Bowl and a national championship at stake in that game.”

But for sheer excitement from start to finish, last Saturday’s game wasn’t too bad.

“We needed a break,” Jackson said. “We haven’t been getting too many lately. Notre Dame losing to Penn State didn’t help matters. We thought we’d have the No. 1 team going Saturday night.”

Still, USC-Notre Dame is almost always worth watching. So save some room.

Depending on your perspective, the highlight of Sunday’s pro football menu is the Rams at San Francisco.

CBS will have the team of Pat Summerall and John Madden, which did Thursday’s Washington-Dallas game, work this game as well.

The NBC game at 10 a.m. Sunday will be Miami at Cleveland, with Don Criqui and Todd Christensen.

The ESPN game at 5 p.m. Sunday is Seattle at San Diego, and the Monday night game on ABC should be a good one, Buffalo at Houston.

Over-stuffed on football? One alternative is the Skins Game on ABC.

Now in its eighth year, it is always one of the highest-rated golf events on television.

“I hoped it would be successful, but I never thought it would grow into what it has become,” said Don Ohlmeyer, the creator of the event whose company produces the telecasts.

“And this year, we’ve got an unbelievable lineup--the player of the century (Jack Nicklaus), the PGA player of the year (Nick Faldo), the leading money winner (Greg Norman) and (defending champion) Curtis Strange.”

Each hole of the $450,000 event has its own prize money. The prize money carries over when there are ties.

Saturday’s competition will be on Channel 7 live at 12:30 p.m., with Sunday’s round delayed three hours (after pro football) and shown at 3:30 p.m. The announcing team includes Roger Twibell, Jerry Pate and Peter Jacobsen.

For those who enjoy figure skating and gymnastics, there’s a two-hour program called the “Sudafed Symphony of Sports” on NBC’s “SportsWorld” Saturday at 2 p.m.

The show, taped at Vail, Colo., in September, brings together some of the biggest names in the two sports, including skaters Brian Boitano, Robin Cousins and Rosalyn Sumners and gymnasts Bart Conner, Nadia Comaneci, Kristie Phillips and Wendy Hilliard.

Twenty-one athletes took part in choreographed, artist performances, some of which put skaters and gymnasts side by side. The show also includes some interesting taped interviews.

In one, Conner brings out Comaneci’s personality and also touches on the scandals that haunted her for a year. Now, the Romanian defector says her life is in order.

Conner, who also performs, teams with Cousins in a tremendous Western routine. Conner does some pretty impressive flips while wearing cowboy boots.

It appears he’s doing some of them on ice, but Conner said he’s not quite that brave. “No, there are mats there, although it’s hard to tell,” he said. “They are the same color as the ice.”

The hosts of the show are Charlie Jones, Sandra Bezic and Tim Daggett.

Talk update: Radio station KABC will begin on-air auditions for Ed (Superfan) Bieler’s replacement on “Sportstalk” next week.

First up, on Wednesday and Thursday, will be Times columnist Mike Downey, who will be paired with Eric Tracy.

The week of Dec. 10, Jay Johnstone gets a shot.

TV-Radio Notes

If you missed out on taping the USC-UCLA replay on Prime Ticket last Sunday night, or your cable system malfunctioned, as some did, Prime Ticket will show the game again in its entirety on Christmas. It will kick off a retrospective of the USC-UCLA series over the past decade. . . . Prime Ticket has hired Bill Walton as its UCLA basketball commentator. He will be paired with Mike Walden, meaning it will be the team of Walden and Walton.

The Raiders, by beating Miami last Monday, improved to 28-6-1 on “Monday Night Football.” . . . Oops Dept.: In the category of misplaced graphic, ABC put this one over Raider Coach Art Shell at the end of Monday night’s game: “Blimp provided by Goodyear Tire and Rubber.” . . . Just wondering: Does Channel 7 gets its audiences for its “Monday Night Football” post-game shows from the Wally George Show? . . . As if there wasn’t enough football on television this weekend, SportsChannel offers the Grey Cup Championship, pitting Edmonton against Winnipeg, Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

Darryl Strawberry will be a guest on “Late Night With David Letterman” tonight. . . . Pete Arbogast will be doing double duty for KNX Saturday. First, there’s the USC-Chicago State basketball game at the Sports Arena at 1:30, then the USC-Notre Dame football game at the Coliseum. . . . Joe Buttitta, former Channel 5 and Channel 11 sportscaster who is now the voice of Cal State Northridge, has made a pilot for a weekly show, “Eye on Golf,” scheduled for airing in the spring of next year. Former pro golfer Debbie Steinbach of Long Beach is the co-host. Buttitta, who also writes for a golf magazine, is an avid golfer who carries a single-digit handicap.