No Bowl Eyes Smile on Irish This Season

After losing to USC on Saturday, Notre Dame players said they had been told by Coach Lou Holtz that they had played their last game this season.

On Monday, Athletic Director Mike Wadsworth made it official, taking the Irish out of the running for at-large bids to the Copper and Independence bowls.

The Aloha Bowl still could offer a bid, but it’s unlikely No. 18 Notre Dame (8-3) would want to play unranked California (6-5). Notre Dame has said all along it won’t accept a bid unless the opponent is a quality team that could improve Notre Dame’s ranking.

Of Notre Dame’s 21 bowl games, 11 have been against top-ranked or unbeaten teams.

“Going to a bowl just for the sake of going to a bowl isn’t going to do that,” Wadsworth said. “Our decision-making will focus on whether that opportunity is a significant one for our program. . . . We’re probably going to be more stringent in our assessment because we are in a transitional period.”

Holtz announced Nov. 19 he was stepping down at the end of the season, which was expected to include his 10th Jan. 1 bowl appearance in a row, longest in the country.

Notre Dame’s loss to USC was expensive in that the Irish lost an $8-million payday that goes with an alliance bowl berth.

That two of the three losses this season came in overtime perhaps makes it worse.

“If we do not play in a bowl game, I guess the disappointment is for the seniors,” said John Heisler, the school’s sports information director. “It’s not hard to see how this could be a 10-1 team.”

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Syracuse, which could have wrapped up the Big East Conference title and an alliance bowl berth Saturday with a victory over Miami, accepted a bid to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tenn.

The Orangemen (8-3) will play Houston (7-4) after falling behind by 25 points and then rallying, only to fall short of Miami, 38-31.

The loss dropped Syracuse to co-champion status in the Big East with Miami and Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was hammered by Syracuse, 52-21, but is ranked higher in the CFA poll than either school and gets the alliance bid to the Orange Bowl.

As the runner-up, Syracuse should have earned a Gator Bowl bid to play the Atlantic Coast Conference’s second-place team, but North Carolina finished second in the ACC and beat Syracuse in the season opener.

Gator Bowl officials did not want a rematch, nor did they want a game involving Miami--third in the Big East--because of a perceived lack of fan support among South Floridians for a game in Jacksonville.

That nettled Miami, whose coach, Butch Davis, said Sunday that it would be “a tragedy” if Gator Bowl officials picked West Virginia to play North Carolina.

On Monday they did just that, and No. 19 Miami (8-3) opted to accept a Carquest Bowl bid to play No. 25 Virginia (8-3) in what amounts to a home game for the Hurricanes.

That was fine with Davis.

“I think our fans will be excited,” Davis said. “I know our players and coaches are.”

They are excited to have any kind of postseason. A year ago, for the first time since 1982, Miami didn’t play in a bowl game. The reason was NCAA sanctions.

“It feels good to be back in the bowl picture,” quarterback Ryan Clement said.

The Hurricanes have a three-game losing streak in bowl games since their last national championship season in 1991.

“Our senior class hasn’t won a bowl game since we’ve been here,” senior linebacker Twan Russell said, “and I wanted to play in a bowl game. I didn’t care where we played--the Potato Chip Bowl, I couldn’t care less. We just want to play football.”