Fiesta Bowl Dandy Fails to Alter His View on BCS

Rick Morrissey commenting in the Chicago Tribune on Ohio State’s 31-24 double overtime victory over Miami in the national championship football game:

“You might be asking: Why, after one of the most amazing bowl games in history -- a game that conclusively decided the national championship -- would anyone be talking about a playoff? Didn’t the top two teams play? Didn’t Friday prove the bowl championship series works?

“No, it proves that even a blind computer sometimes finds the right two teams.”

Trivia time: Who holds the Pacific 10 Conference record for most yards receiving in a bowl game?

Ridiculing Hootie: Jaime Diaz in GolfWorld magazine commenting on Masters chairman Hootie Johnson:

“[His] insistence that there would be no woman member before the 2003 Masters to his commissioning of an amateur-hour opinion poll, his public persona has resembled no one so much as Ted Knight’s pigheaded [to use recently resigned member Thomas Wyman’s word] and puffed up Judge Smails in ‘Caddyshack.’ ”

Hiding place: Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Craig Krenzel, the quarterback of Ohio State’s national championship football team, has discovered an unusual place to get away from it all: the classroom.

“That’s because the 6-foot-4, 215-pound junior is majoring in molecular genetics, with an eye on medical school.

“The nice thing about taking those kind of classes is that 90% of the students don’t know who I am,” said Krenzel, who carries a 3.71 grade-point average. “They’re spending all their time studying.”

Getting to know you: LaVar Arrington, Washington Redskin linebacker, to the Washington Times after Coach Steve Spurrier said he would relinquish the play-calling duties to spend more time with the defense:

“You can build relationships with the defensive players. It’s not a crime.”

Wait a minute! John Blanchette of the Spokane-Review, after Oklahoma routed Alabama-bound Coach Mike Price’s Cougars, 34-14 in the Rose Bowl, in his Washington State finale:

“The guess here is that some Bubba in Alabama is poring over Mike Price’s resume at this very minute, hoping to find a George O’Learyism in there.”

Keep him distracted: Peter Vecsey in the New York Post: “Rasheed Wallace has only four technicals after 30 games, down from 10 a year ago. He blames it on off-the-court distractions.”

Trivia answer: Keyshawn Johnson of USC, 222 yards against Texas Tech in the 1995 Cotton Bowl.

And finally: Critics who say there are too many bowl games won’t get any arguments from Jim Turner, one of the top kickers in NFL history.

Turner, during his days at Utah State, played in the very first -- and long since discontinued -- Gotham Bowl at a sparsely filled Polo Grounds in New York.

“It was a dump,” he told Associated Press. “There were more pigeons than people.”

-- Mal Florence