Bowl Deal Pleases Just About Everyone

The Rose Bowl finally got it. After decades of staring without a hint of recognition at the need for a true national champion, you knew the boys in Pasadena, Calif., finally understood when current honcho Harriman Cronk said, “Imagine, for example, Notre Dame and Alabama finishing 1-2, and that’s the game we get.”

Outside of CBS, there are no losers. ABC Sports announced a four-game, seven-year “understanding in principle” to purchase postseason TV and marketing rights from the six major NCAA Division I-A conferences and Notre Dame, beginning in 1998.

Although the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls--the members of the Alliance that will operate for the next two seasons--have been promised nothing, they are the likely sites for the other three games. The only site that may have to worry is the Orange Bowl. With ABC’s parent company, Disney, having a big corporate presence in Orlando, Fla., it’s easy to see the Citrus Bowl as the eastern site.

But worry about that later. Most everyone loves this agreement. The Rose Bowl gets to keep the Pac-10 and Big Ten champs in the six years the championship game isn’t in Pasadena. If the Pac-10 or Big Ten winner is No. 1 and/or No. 2, that team moves to the championship game. And the other conferences even threw the Rose Bowl a bone. The championship is scheduled for Pasadena after the 2001 season. But if in the three previous seasons, a Pac-10 or Big Ten team is No. 1, the Rose Bowl takes the title game that season.

What’s not to like? “When everybody realized how little we had to give up to get a lot, we figured, ‘Hey, a lot of good things are going to happen,’ ” Penn State Coach Joe Paterno says. The snub of the Nittany Lions in 1994 (when they finished 12-0 but No. 2 behind Nebraska) lit the fuse on this deal. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany got so angry, he went out and changed the football world. The heavy lifting on this deal was done by Delany and, in the super heavyweight class, ABC Sports programming vice president Tony Petitti, who spent the past 15 months cajoling the Rose Bowl into playing with the other children.

As a result, those who want a full-blown playoff must wait. “I think the playoff is dead,” Paterno says. “We got a playoff now.”

Oh, if you put your ear close to the boardroom door, you could hear a few grumbles. The Big 12, a conference that doesn’t yet speak with one voice, felt ABC got a bargain. The network will pay the Rose Bowl $18 million plusannually and, in a separate deal, the other three bowls will receive similar amounts. The University of Michigan weighed in from the 1970s, led by then-coach Bo Schembechler, who called the deal bad for the school, the Big Ten, the Rose Bowl and civilization as we know it.

There remains the question of how to determine the top two teams. The coaches want the coaches’ poll, that monument to manipulation and grudges. Speaking as an Associated Press voter, consider this an endorsement of the idea of an independent third group made up of athletic directors from all the conferences. Do it like the NCAA basketball committee, with charts, graphs, computers and summer meetings at lavish resorts. Go for it.

The key phrase in the deal is that ABC purchased the marketing rights. There won’t be any more Tostitos Fiesta Bowls and the garish signage that comes with that. ABC will market the whole shebang to one company, as in, “The Alliance, presented by Acme.” ABC and corporate brother ESPN will shovel the game through every telecommunications crack of your house--ESPN preview shows, radio, Internet and whatever else comes along in the next couple of years.

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TWO THINGS I don’t understand at this stage of the season: No one is picking Nebraska No. 1, and no one is picking Northwestern to win the Big Ten. Both should be considered for the same reason.

Let Iowa State Coach Dan McCarney make the case for the Huskers: “How do you not pick Nebraska going into this season as the favorite in the Big 12 and the national championship race, based on what they’ve done and how badly they’ve beaten everybody and how much of a nucleus they’ve got coming back?”

As for the Wildcats, they have 12 fifth-year seniors, 16 returning starters and an easier schedule than last season. “Everybody’s got a job to do,” Northwestern Coach Gary Barnett says. “You guys (media) get paid big bucks to make the predictions. None of us do. You’re not held accountable. Anybody get fired last year because you picked us 79th? People still look at us as a miracle Cinderella team.”

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FLORIDA TAILBACK Fred Taylor will miss all of September after the university suspended him for his minor role in a book-stealing scam. That means Taylor won’t play in the Gators’ SEC East/Heisman showdown at Tennessee. But Taylor is one member of the deepest entry on the Gators’ depth chart. Tailbacks Eli Williams and Terry Jackson are still around to take the heat off of quarterback Danny Wuerffel. Coach Steve Spurrier says Taylor isn’t a bad guy: “There are all kinds of categories of messing up. There are violent acts and there are stupid acts. Most of Fred’s have fallen into the stupid category.” . . .

Ohio State fullback Nicky Sualua, the only returning starter in the Buckeyes’ backfield, may not be returning. Coach John Cooper is skeptical that Sualua, a 5-foot-10, 250-pound senior, will qualify academically. Senior Matt Calhoun will start if Sualua doesn’t pull through summer school. . . . Speaking of Ohio State: The coming stadium renovation will include 80 luxury boxes and a capacity of more than 100,000.