Freedom Will Gladly Settle for Big Loser

This Saturday is the Big One, the way it always should be: USC vs. UCLA inside a sold-out Coliseum, the Battle of Los Angeles played out in front of a national television audience, first place versus second place with everything on the line.

Yes, this game will be played with the Freedom Bowl at stake.

To the winner goes the roses, to the loser goes a subscription to the Freedom Newspaper of its choice. Or at least that’s Scenario A in the sketchbook of Freedom Bowl executive director Don Andersen, who has a contract, neatly typed and officially notarized, that binds the third-place finisher in the Pacific 10 Conference to Andersen’s little game Dec. 30 at Anaheim Stadium.

Should Arizona beat Arizona State on Thanksgiving, the loser of the USC-UCLA game will finish third in the Pac 10. Andersen loves this scenario, but it is conditional love, dependent on the Bowl Coalition’s handling of the Notre Dame/Florida State/Nebraska controversy/sorry mess/best argument yet for a college football playoff.

(At press time, the Bowl Coalition had settled, for the moment, anyway, on the following tie-breaking procedure: a) heads or tails; b) rock-paper-scissors; c) blindfold-and-dart throw; d) “What the hell, let’s just give it to good ol’ Bobby.”)

“If Notre Dame and Florida State are 1-2 at the end of the season,” Andersen says, “they would go to the Fiesta Bowl and the other seven bowls in the coalition would then have a choice of a second Pac-10 team. And it doesn’t have to be the second-place finisher.

“I’ve been told the Hancock Bowl would take the loser of the SC-UCLA game. That would leave us with Arizona, or possibly, Arizona State.”

But, Andersen continues, “if Notre Dame and Florida State are not 1-2 in the country, then I think the Fiesta would take a 9-2 Arizona team and that would leave us with either SC or UCLA. That scenario is good for us.”

Which is why Andersen has booked himself a ticket and a boarding pass on the Nebraska Cornhusker bandwagon.

“Go Big Red!” Andersen says with a laugh.

“It’s funny how it plays down, from the No. 2 and 3 teams in the country all the way to the Freedom Bowl. That tipped pass in the end zone (of Saturday’s Notre Dame-Florida State game)? If Florida State doesn’t catch it, Notre Dame wins by two touchdowns instead of one, and Nebraska is maybe No. 2 instead of Florida State, and we’re sitting pretty right now.”

Instead, all Andersen can do is sit and root.

“Right now,” he says, “I’m hoping Nebraska beats Oklahoma bad and Florida State has a really tough time with either North Carolina State or Florida.”

USC or UCLA would give Andersen half of his dream matchup for Freedom Bowl X. That’s X as in 10, not Brand X, not anymore, and that’s a story in itself.

The Freedom Bowl nearly died in its infancy. Cause of death would have been pneumonia, given the monsoon conditions that body-slammed Anaheim in December of ’84. Poor Texas and Iowa--they should have played that game on inner tubes.

Who among the scant few who dog-paddled through the aisles that dark and stormy night could have ever fathomed this day: the Freedom Bowl at age 10, listening to Michigan bang on its door and telling the Wolverines, thanks but no thanks.

“Michigan called last week,” Andersen reports. “We also had inquiries from Syracuse and Iowa. We told them all ‘no.’ ”

No to Michigan?

Two years after scrambling to pit San Diego State against Tulsa?

“Our thinking with Michigan,” Andersen says, “was this: They’d been to the Rose Bowl three years in a row and the fan who’d come out to Southern California once, twice or three times already is probably not going to come out for the Freedom Bowl. That’s just being realistic about the thing.

“And if Michigan loses to Ohio State, Michigan’s 6-5. Everybody there is then anxious for basketball season to start.”

Andersen says the Freedom Bowl “didn’t want to make the same mistakes of ’84 and ‘89, when Texas and Iowa and Florida came in and really didn’t want to be here.”

Andersen says the Freedom Bowl “is a regional game” and therefore committed itself to a regional matchup by signing an agreement last Friday to invite the second- or third-place team from the Western Athletic Conference.

The other half of Andersen’s dream matchup?

Fresno State, which now refers to the Freedom Bowl as “our bowl” and is promising to caravan 30,000 troops down I-5 if invited for a return engagement.

This, no doubt, gives USC the motivational edge over UCLA Saturday. The Trojans need no fiery speeches from O.J. The Trojans need to hear five words and five words only:

Lose And It’s Fresno Again.

“We’d do it in a minute,” Andersen says, and it is no idle threat. Fresno-USC in ’92 brought the Freedom Bowl its second-biggest in-house crowd, 51,000-plus, eclipsed by only UCLA-BYU and 52,000 in 1986.

If UCLA goes to the Rose Bowl, Andersen wants the Trojans, even if it means having USC play three times in Anaheim (two Freedom Bowls, one Pigskin Classic) within 12 months.

“I don’t think it’d be overkill,” Andersen says. “The Rams play at Anaheim Stadium 10 times a year . . .”

Pause.

“OK, bad analogy,” Andersen quips.

“I still think the fans in this market would rather see USC or UCLA, given the chance.”

Freedom Bowl officials will be at the Coliseum Saturday afternoon, with fingers crossed, hoping for that chance.

“But we’re going to take a low profile,” Andersen says. “We’re the second-place--or the third-place--award. It’s not going to be, ‘Oh, good, you lose, you get to come to the Freedom Bowl.’ ”

While that wouldn’t be the worst icebreaker known to man--the Titanic, for one, comes to mind--the Freedom Bowl is now old enough to know better.