Eight Bowl Games Way Too Much of a Mediocre Thing

Eight is more than enough. Eight bowl games on one day are at least five too many.

The New Year’s Day logjam is the best argument for a playoff system in college football.

The bowl coalition ensured that No. 1 would play No. 2, but the New Year’s Day situation is still a mess.

What we have today is a main event, the Sugar Bowl on ABC, plus a bunch of prelims.

The other bowls, with maybe the exception of the Cotton Bowl, now on NBC, have been downgraded. ABC’s Rose Bowl, once the granddaddy, has become an unwanted stepchild.

In previous years it was hard to get a Rose Bowl ticket. You had to know somebody, or get picked in a lottery. Now you can call TicketMaster.

ABC’s Keith Jackson, the dean of the college football announcer who will work tonight’s Sugar Bowl, said: “I’m not sure what road we’re headed down, but we appear headed toward a playoff.”

Jackson sees one snag, however. The Rose Bowl has the Pacific 10 and Big Ten tied up until 2001.

“The Big Ten and Pac-10 can’t even spell playoffs until then,” Jackson said.

Jackson points to the Southeastern Conference format as possibly the way to go.

“The SEC enlarged (into two divisions) and scheduled a championship game,” he said. “Maybe other conferences could merge and have championship games to get it down to four teams for a playoff.”

Something must be done.

No one can watch eight games in one day. It’s ridiculous.

Davis profile: A year and a half ago, Channel 9 televised a special on Los Angeles’ sports owners. All but Al Davis were interviewed by the show’s host, Tom Murray.

After that, Murray continued to work on Davis, trying to get him to agree to an interview. Finally, Davis said OK, and an interview was taped the first week of November.

Since then, Murray, producer Debra Vogel and photographer-editor Jody Mena have been putting together the show, “Al Davis: the Man and the Mystique,” which will be shown Tuesday night around 7:30, after the Laker game at Chicago.

One of the show’s six segments, on Davis’ early years, was ready for press viewing this week. The indication is that this is a show worth watching.

The problem is the timing of the piece, since Al Davis’ popularity may be at an all-time low. But at least it’s not a Larry Smith profile.

Real blockbuster: How big was the Freedom Bowl in Fresno? It drew a 48 rating and a 77 share on Fresno’s Channel 26, the station’s highest rating ever, by far.

Fresno State’s 24-7 victory over USC was seen in an estimated 235,483 homes in Fresno County, and about another 300,000 in the San Joaquin Valley outside Fresno County.

In Los Angeles, Channel 9 got a 9.9 and a 16 share, which is actually a good rating for Los Angeles. Good enough, in fact, to place Channel 9 second for the night behind Channel 7. The game was seen in about 491,000 Southern California homes.

Last year’s Freedom Bowl, in which Tulsa beat San Diego State, 28-17, had a 4.6 rating in Los Angeles.

Time change: Usually, Channel 4 runs Fred Roggin’s New Year’s Day year-end special immediately after NBC’s coverage of the Orange Bowl. But because of the interest in the Sugar Bowl on ABC, Roggin’s “Sports Bowl ‘92,” as it is called, won’t be shown until 10 p.m.

Typically, this Roggin show is zany and well produced, although a bit corny and predictable at times.

Outdated: Taping a show can be risky, as the folks who do Channel 2’s Sunday morning show, “L.A. Football Company,” found out.

Marcus Allen, in a taped interview with host Jim Hill, had nothing but good things to say about Raider Coach Art Shell.

But the day before that interview was shown, Shell, in an interview with CBS’ Jim Gray, said: “We had a situation with Marcus Allen that hurt me probably more than anything this year because he said that I have no control over trades, that it’s out of my hands. I felt that was a lie, and know it is a lie.”

Shell also said of Allen: “The mood swings, this standing off to the side, I mean, during the course of the game when your team needs to be pulling together, be rooting it on, and he’s sitting on the bench. That’s a distraction.”

Mr. Provocative: Bill Walton apparently will be anything but vanilla during the “Insiders” segments on NBC’s “NBA Showtime.”

In his debut on Christmas Day, Walton reported that the Lakers, not the Clippers, may be moving to Anaheim, noting there are people “who want to team up the Lakers and Mickey Mouse.”

Of Detroit’s Dennis Rodman, Walton said: “He has been portrayed as a lunatic and a nut. But this guy is as solid as a rock.”

Walton also suggested that the Phoenix Suns might want to trade Kevin Johnson, as long as Richard Dumas, who has a history of drug problems, “can keep his nose clean.”

Colleague Peter Vecsey vehemently disagreed that Johnson should be made available.

“The Suns were able to get Charles Barkley and still keep K.J., so why in the world would they now trade him?” Vecsey said.

TV-Radio Notes

ABC usually has Keith Jackson and Bob Griese working the Rose Bowl but switched them to the bigger Sugar Bowl. Brent Musburger and Dick Vermeil will call the Rose Bowl. . . . This will be the third time Jackson has worked a bowl game featuring No. 1 against No. 2. The two others were the 1979 Sugar Bowl, in which No. 2 Alabama defeated No. 1 Penn State, 14-7, and the 1983 Sugar Bowl, in which No. 2 Penn State defeated No. 1 Georgia, 27-23. Notice a trend there? . . . NBC usually has its top announcing team on the Orange Bowl, but Dick Enberg was given the weekend off. So Don Criqui will work with Bob Trumpy.

Double duty: Julie Moran will help with ABC’s Rose Parade coverage, serving with Lynn Swann and John Naber, then will work the Rose Bowl game as a sideline reporter. . . . Add double duty: Musburger and Vermeil will jaunt down from Pasadena to San Diego to call the Chargers’ game with Kansas City on Saturday. . . . NBC’s Charlie Jones and Todd Christensen, who will work today’s Fiesta Bowl, will have a little longer trip. They will also work Sunday’s NFL playoff game at Buffalo, where the Bills play Houston.

These are a particularly busy two days for ABC--three bowl games today and two NFL playoff games Saturday. The “Monday Night Football” crew of Al Michaels, Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf will work the early game on Saturday, Washington at Minnesota. . . . ABC also will have a special NFL pregame show Saturday, with John Saunders serving as host and Sam Wyche serving as guest analyst.

Joe Montana’s return after almost two years on the sidelines helped ABC get a 19.1 rating for “Monday Night Football” this week. The series averaged a 16.8 rating this season, same as last year, and ranks seventh among 123 prime-time shows. Not bad considering the number of blowouts this season.

Bob Arum’s Top Rank boxing series on ESPN gets off to a great start in 1993, showing East Los Angeles’ Oscar De La Hoya in his third professional fight live from the Hollywood Palladium Sunday night at 6. De La Hoya takes on Paris Alexander. Arum is convinced that De La Hoya is headed for superstardom. Arum plans to have De La Hoya in a title fight by the end of the year.

SportsChannel went off the air at midnight Thursday, meaning no more Clipper telecasts on local cable television. But Mitch Huberman, the Clippers’ vice president of marketing and broadcasting, said negotiations with Prime Ticket are going well and progress in being made. . . . Santa Anita is negotiating with Prime Ticket as well, concerning the late-night replays SportsChannel had been carrying.

There’s no NBA on NBC this weekend, but the Lakers and Clippers, both on the road, are on Channel 9 and Channel 13 both Saturday and Sunday. . . . TNT has a good game Sunday at 5 p.m. It’s the Phoenix Suns, going after their 15th victory in a row, playing at San Antonio. . . . Turner Sports’ weekly Olympic series, “U.S. Olympic Gold,” is switching from TBS to TNT. Women’s figure skating is featured in Sunday’s segment at 2 p.m. . . . The Pro Stakes Golf Championship, being played this weekend at the new Dove Canyon Club in south Orange County, will be televised by the USA network, delayed, at 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.