USC Has Plenty of Bowl Possibilities : College football: The Trojans will not be able to control their fate as far as the Rose Bowl, but there is the potential to play on New Year’s Day.

USC’s chances of reaching the Rose Bowl, already slim before last Saturday, all but ended when the Trojans lost to Stanford.

That could change if front-running Washington has to forfeit the eight victories in which ineligible quarterback Billy Joe Hobert participated.

But if USC is not awarded a forfeit victory over Washington, an improbable series of events would have to occur for the Trojans to win the Pacific 10 Conference championship.

USC would have to defeat ninth-ranked Arizona and UCLA in its final two conference games while Washington loses to Oregon State and Washington State, and Stanford splits against Washington State and California.

Still, barring a winless final three weeks, which would leave them one short of the six victories required to play in a bowl, the Trojans almost surely will avoid a second consecutive bowl-less season.

“USC is a very attractive team,” said Don Andersen, executive director of the Freedom Bowl. “You can never discount USC’s popularity because of the size of the (television) market.”

USC could still wind up playing on New Year’s Day.

“There are a whole raft of (possibilities),” said Mike McGee, USC athletic director.

Among the most plausible:

--If the Trojans win their final three games, including their season finale against Notre Dame on Nov. 28, they would be 8-2-1, no worse than tied for second place in the Pac-10 and probably in line for a Fiesta Bowl bid.

As part of the bowl coalition, the Tier I Fiesta Bowl would have the first crack at a Pac-10 team. And it is said that Fiesta Bowl officials favor a pairing of the Pac-10 runner-up against the Big East runner-up, probably Syracuse or Boston College.

--If the Trojans finish second in the Pac-10 but then lose to Notre Dame, the Fiesta Bowl might pass on them to take a team that is ranked higher.

If that happened, and the Fiesta Bowl did not take a Pac-10 team, USC could be selected by a Tier II coalition bowl, probably the Blockbuster or the John Hancock.

But the Blockbuster Bowl, which extended a bid to Penn State before the season started, might take Stanford over the Trojans, even if USC finishes above the Cardinal in the Pac-10 standings.

Blockbuster Bowl officials are said to favor a matchup of coaching legends Joe Paterno of Penn State and Bill Walsh of Stanford.

--If the Trojans finish second in the Pac-10 and are not selected by a coalition bowl, or if they finish third, they will play in the Freedom Bowl at Anaheim Stadium.

The Pac-10’s third-place team is locked into the Freedom Bowl, and Andersen has said repeatedly that his hope is to land one of the four California-based Pac-10 schools.

USC, with a large fan base in Orange County, undoubtedly would be his No. 1 choice.

“In the eight previous games, we’ve had only one California Pac-10 team,” Andersen said. “And that game, UCLA-BYU, attracted our largest crowd (55,422 in 1986).”

Even if the Trojans finish in a tie for third place in the Pac-10, they almost certainly would be picked to play in the Freedom Bowl.

--If the Trojans finish lower than third, they still could wind up in the Hancock Bowl, probably matched against the Southwest Conference runner-up.

“We would love to have USC as our second team,” said Tom Starr, interim executive director of the Hancock Bowl and a former executive director of the Freedom Bowl. “For instance, if we had Texas out of the Southwest Conference as one team, we would love to have Texas vs. Southern Cal.”

Two years ago, the Hancock Bowl matched the Trojans against Michigan State.

Other possibilities for a fourth-place USC team would be the Holiday Bowl, the Aloha Bowl or the Copper Bowl.

The Copper Bowl has entered into separate agreements with several Pac-10 schools to take the conference’s fourth team, but USC is said to be cool to what it believes are unrealistic demands on the participating teams to buy a minimum amount of tickets.

The Trojans might choose the Holiday or Aloha over the Copper.