GETTING WITH THE....PROGRAMS

By CHRIS DUFRESNE

Aug. 26, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A school either is or it isn’t.

Alabama is.

Notre Dame is.

Ohio State is.

Michigan is.

Texas is.

USC is.

Missouri thinks it is but is not, Minnesota was but is no longer, Wisconsin just discovered what the meaning of “is” is, Rice never was and Temple will never, ever be.

We have gathered here to establish what is required to be a college football program.

Mind you, this is more than an empirical hashing of wins and losses.

Colorado won a national title in 1990 but is not a program; Ohio State has not won one since 1968 but is.

Determining what constitutes a program is tricky business, as much about feel and intuition as it is churning out NFL talent.

Can we whistle your fight song?

Can mere mention of your school start a bar fight?

Does your school consider it a moral imperative to keep expanding stadium capacity so as to annually lead the NCAA in attendance?

Do we need a tow truck to haul your media guide from the mailbox to the front door?

If you answered yes, yes, yes and yes to the above, you are likely a program.

You have a far better chance of achieving program status if you tee it up in the South, where the “War of Northern Aggression” has provided more than four score and seven years worth of motivation.

When Georgia (program) beat Michigan (program) at Ann Arbor in 1965, fans deluged the Bulldogs upon their return to Athens.

“It was as if we had a chance to go to Gettysburg again,” former Georgia coach Vince Dooley says of that victory in Tony Barnhart’s new book, “Southern Fried Football.”

What does it take to make our varsity?

National titles factor in and tradition is a must, but there is much more to it than that.

A program must go the extra yard.

Any school willing buy out a head coach’s contract, no matter the length or the amount, is a program.

Any school that keeps recruiting a player it can’t get just to keep a rival school’s top recruiter on the case is a program.

You probably also qualify if:

* The square footage of your school’s weight room is roughly equal to that of your town’s municipal airport.

* You think the 85-man scholarship limit is a communist plot.

* You contribute money to only two sports: football and spring football.

* You publicly support Title IX but privately think it has set your boys back 20 years.

* Hollywood has made a movie involving the program. “Rudy,” “Big Chill,” “Something For Joey,” “Everybody’s All-American,” “The Spirit of West Point,” “Hold ‘em Navy,” “The Bear,” “Knute Rockne, All American,” “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

* Your school annually ranks in the preseason top 10 no matter how many starters it has coming back.

* Your head coach could run for Congress and win in a landslide.

* They name city streets after your coaches and players.

* The chief of police keeps mug photos of your players in his top drawer.

* Your head coach leads practice with a megaphone, from a tower.

* You have a living mascot (UGA, Mike the Tiger, Bevo); although this does not guarantee enshrinement (see “Ralphie” at Colorado).

To what length will you go for your program?

Will one of your players come off the bench to tackle an opponent running free down the sideline, a la Alabama’s Tommy Lewis against Rice’s Dickie Moegle in the 1954 Cotton Bowl?

* Are you arrogant enough (pay attention here, USC and Notre Dame) to keep scheduling top 10 opponents because you believe in your heart you are one national television victory from getting back in title contention?

You get program bonus points if you had a coach or player nicknamed “Shug,” “Bump,” “Rip,” “Gus,” “Bear,” “Bubba,” “Duffy,” “Muddy.” Notable exceptions: Orin “Babe” Hollingbery at Washington State and Texas El Paso’s “Cactus Jack” Curtice.

You are a program if you can overlook your head coach’s scandalous extramarital affair as long as he defeats Auburn.

You are probably a program if you’ve had 10 or fewer coaches in the last 100 years.

Since 1950, for example, Penn State has employed only Rip Engle and Joe Paterno, who have amassed a combined record of 421-131-7.

Penn State is a program.

Lastly, and this is very important--it can make or break a program.

Are you willing to accept NCAA sanctions as a reasonable condition for winning a national title?

This factor alone tipped the University of Washington off the program fence.

You are likely not a program if:

* You produce boatloads of NFL players but can’t sell out home games.

* You sell your tickets to the Rose Bowl when your team is in it.

* Your marching band is banned from playing at a game but your team isn’t.

* You sell your home game to an opponent for financial considerations.

* Your arena is named after a basketball coach, but the football stadium is named after a philanthropist.

* You play in a conference that ends with any combination of the letters U, S and A.

* You play in a domed stadium.

* Your most famous football player made his name in baseball.

* You ripped your fight song off from Nebraska and changed the words.

The list:

(Program note: If your school is not among the following, you are most likely a rat for the NCAA.)

The Programs

NOTRE DAME: The whole nine yards. Equal parts love, hate, hype, history, myth combined now with first-ever NCAA sanctions! They ought to make several movies.

ALABAMA: Bear Bryant left Texas A&M; (program) in 1958 to return to Tuscaloosa. Asked why, Bear said, “Mama called.”

MICHIGAN: You are a program when your Sept. 16 game at UCLA can be written off as a “West Coast recruiting trip.”

NEBRASKA: The “American Gothic” of programs: The media guide cover could be a standing shot of a plow, pitchfork, sickle and blocking sled.

TEXAS: It matters not that the Longhorns haven’t claimed a national title in 30 years, because the eyes of Texas are always upon them. Remember, it was Darrell Royal who taught the Wishbone to Bear Bryant.

OHIO STATE: Brigham Young leads Ohio State, 1-0, in national titles since 1968, but we’re not even checking the Buckeyes’ ID at the door. Great band, fight song, stadium, uniforms, tradition.

OKLAHOMA: A former OU president in the Bud Wilkinson era said his goal was to build a university to make the football team proud. Slimier than crude oil in the days under the bootlegger’s son, Barry Switzer, otherwise known in Norman as “the glory years.”

TENNESEE: These people are sick. If they don’t stop this crazy attendance war with Michigan, Neyland Stadium in 10 years is going to be taller than the Eiffel Tower.

PENN STATE: For 50 years, in an isolated hamlet, Joe Paterno has dominated opponents, the tube sock industry, genetics, fans and the media.

USC: Hmmm. Hasn’t won a national since ’78. Hasn’t produced a Heisman winner since 1981. But, as “Tusk” bandmates Fleetwood Mac put it in the banner years: “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”

FLORIDA STATE: Only a man of Bobby Bowden’s clout could single-handedly transform the former Florida State College for Women into a program. Phyllis Diller never underwent this kind of face lift.

GEORGIA: UGA! They play ball “between the hedges,” bury deceased mascots in the end zone, bark like dogs on kickoffs. The women dress to the “9s” on game days and the men wear ties. What more needs to be said?

AUBURN: We seek consistency in a program. The 1957 national title team under Shug Jordan was not allowed to play in a bowl because of NCAA violations. Terry Bowden’s 1994 unbeaten squad was bowl-ineligible for infractions incurred under Pat Dye.

MIAMI: Last sentence in our Psych 101 exam paper on the subject: “Not even a blip on the program radar screen until the 1980s, when three coaches led the school to four national titles with a renegade, counter-culture bravado that challenged and pistol-whipped established program morays as previously defined by Notre Dame.”

CLEMSON: Years ago a guy hauled a hunk of rock from Death Valley back to South Carolina and stuck it in the east end of Clemson Memorial Stadium. It is now tradition for players to rub “Howard’s Rock” on entry to the field.

This gem is right out of “The Program” handbook.

LOUISIANA STATE: A program, so help us Billy Cannon. In 1934, Huey Long heard sales for a home game were lagging because Barnum and Bailey were in town. Long found an obscure state law prohibiting animals to be washed on Saturday and canceled the circus.

MICHIGAN STATE: A tough call, but in the end we invoked our “name” clause, which states: Any school that has been coached by a “Muddy” and a “Duffy,” and had a star player named “Bubba,” shall henceforth be granted program status.

FLORIDA: You don’t even ask anymore whether the Gators are going to be good. Since Steve Spurrier arrived in 1990, you stick Florida in your preseason top 10 and go mow the lawn.

TEXAS A&M;: Last year, 12 people died while serving the program.

ARKANSAS: It didn’t hurt that the school’s longtime head coach, Frank Broyles, made a seamless transition to longtime athletic director. Bonus points for playing 1969 “Game of the Century” game against Texas.

ARMY-NAVY: They enter together on a special program furlough. Both academies have slipped a bit on the field, but the intensity of the annual rivalry game is still Top Gun.

SYRACUSE: We almost 86’d the Orangeman because they play football on fake grass in an aircraft hanger, but two names kept haunting us in our sleep: Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Jim Brown, Ernie Davis. Syracuse gets in on a historical pass.

WASHINGTON: It was more than Don James and a scandal that sealed the Huskies’ program status. The school was a turn-of-the-century powerhouse, winning 39 consecutive from 1908-14.

BRIGHAM YOUNG: The Cougars qualify under the “Bowden Provision,” although BYU probably leans more toward “factory.” Still, Coach LaVell Edwards has made BYU impossible to ignore. Lord knows we have tried.

MISSISSIPPI: Faulkner-filled past and Southern charm triumphs over recent mediocrity. You tend to forget John Vaught coached Ole Miss to three national titles and that Peyton Manning’s daddy once starred there.

GEORGIA TECH: Two great “Bobby” coaches--Dodds and Ross--plus a coach, John Heisman, who led school in 1916 to a 222-0 drubbing of Cumberland College. It was Heisman, the man for whom the trophy is named, who quipped, “Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”

MISSISSIPPI STATE: Can you let a school in on the strength of its cowbells?

Yes, and Mooooooooo!

ARIZONA STATE: We thought of dumping ASU before considering the prospect of Frank Kush hopping a plane to L.A. and making the sports staff do bear crawls around Parker Center. Yes, the crew-cut Kush era is long gone, but ASU bridged the program gap with John Cooper in the 1980s and a national title run in 1996. What’s more, ASU may be the only program that ever created its own bowl game--the Fiesta.

WISCONSIN: The last school to get with our program, based on the strength of Barry Alvarez’s remarkable decade: 70-44-4 record, three Big Ten titles and consecutive Rose Bowl wins. Wisconsin already had in its favor a Grade AAA fight song--”On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin, plunge right through that line!”--and the nickname power of Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch.

Thinks It Is . . . but Isn’t

UCLA: Just missed the cut (honest). Great uniforms, history, players and a share of the 1954 national title, but word is Angelo Mazzone hocked UCLA’s program rights to Wisconsin for a tidy profit.

Moreover: a program doesn’t rent its home stadium from its archrivals for 50 years.

COLORADO: Earned upgrade stickers for the wild and wayward Bill McCartney days, but this remains foremost a skiing school.

STANFORD: We argued Stanford’s case to a national football tribunal. Pop Warner, Jim Plunkett, John Elway, we said.

Judge’s response: “The SAT scores are way, way too high to qualify for program status.”

ILLINOIS: Once you get beyond the eras, Red Grange and Dick Butkus, the name that sticks is Jeff George.

BOSTON COLLEGE: Under Vatican rules, there are only enough vespers to support one Catholic football superpower.

KENTUCKY: Yes, Bear Bryant went 60-23-5 in Lexington, but here’s the clincher: At a 1953 banquet, alums awarded Bryant a cigarette lighter. Basketball coach Adolph Rupp received a Cadillac.

KANSAS STATE: Bill Snyder still has a few more atoms to split in Manhattan. By our calculations, the Wildcats have to go undefeated for the next 14 years to get back to .500.

NORTH CAROLINA: Mack Brown’s Tar Heels went 11-1 in ‘97, finished No. 4 in the coaches’ poll, and he left to coach Texas. Why?

Because Texas is a program.

ARIZONA: Cannot even be considered by the program veteran’s committee until the school first appears in a Jan. 1 Rose Bowl.

OREGON: If this was a program, we wouldn’t be concerned about Notre Dame (program) air-lifting Coach Mike Bellotti out of Eugene.

CALIFORNIA: For goodness sakes, the guy ran the wrong way in the 1929 Rose Bowl and handed Georgia Tech (program) a national title!

PURDUE: Conclusive factoid: From 1887 to 1978, Boilermakers went to one bowl: the ’67 Rose.

WEST VIRGINIA: Had Bobby Bowden. Hung him in effigy. Bowden left to coach one-time girls’ school in Tallahassee. Wonder what became of him?

IOWA: So, Nile Kinnick won a Heisman Trophy and Hayden Fry had a few good years. Anything else?

SOUTH CAROLINA: Two words: “Chicken Curse.”

OKLAHOMA STATE: Jimmy Johnson, Barry Sanders and a lot of dust.

OTHER TEXAS SCHOOLS: Texas Tech, Baylor, Houston. Listen up: Playing football in Texas does not automatically qualify you for program statehood.

MISSOURI: If this was a program, Tigers would be in the Big Ten by now.

Used to Be / Dormant

GRAMBLING: Turned in program badge and gun the day Eddie Robinson retired with his 408 victories.

PITTSBURGH: Lost our vote when school decided it didn’t want to be known anymore as “Pitt.” Panthers went 55-5-4 from 1913-20, won a national title in 1977 and produced Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett and Dan Marino.

MINNESOTA: One-time dynasty under Bernie Bierman in the 1930s and national title winner in 1960, but programs don’t play football under ceiling lights.

MARYLAND: Bear Bryant coached one year in 1945, Jim Tatum led Terps to a national title in 1953, but it mostly has been Boomer or bust.

DUKE: Blue Devils played the 1938 regular season without giving up a point; have given up lots of points since.

TEXAS CHRISTIAN: Might go 11-0 this year and not come close to earning enough bowl championship series points to qualify for the national title game.

MIAMI, OHIO: Once known as the cradle of coaching, it’s now the other Miami.

VANDERBILT: Legendary coach Dan McGugin’s 1915 team scored 514 points, about as many points as have been scored in the Woody Widenhofer era.

THE IVY LEAGUE: Princeton played the first game; Yale’s Walter Camp darned near invented the rules, but the league’s decision to de-emphasize football and focus on academics were sufficient grounds for program deportation.

Extinct

SOUTHERN METHODIST: It’s OK to cheat one’s way to program status; quite another to cheat one’s way off the gridiron map.

CHICAGO: Amos Alonzo Stagg coached there from 1892 to 1932, but then the program went into a depression.

PACIFIC: Not even two great coaches, Stagg and Bob Toledo, could keep this program from the dead lettermen’s office.

FORDHAM: Vince Lombardi cut his gapped teeth here before the budget wonks took a wrecking ball to the “Seven Blocks of Granite.”

ST. MARY’S: Post-World War II budget cuts left the once-mighty Gaels’ flat brogue.

RUTGERS: Played in the first college football game against Princeton but has won only eight games in four years under Terry Shea.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Most National Championships

* 11--NOTRE DAME

1924, 1929, 1930, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1966, 1973, 1977, 1988

* 9--ALABAMA