Commentary : Being Bowled Over by the Glasnost Bowl

Pardon me for asking, but the Glasnost Bowl? USC and Illinois playing in Moscow in the friendly confines of Dynamo Stadium. This must be a new trend in college football, a permanent cold-weather site. Why USC and Illinois? They’re a traditional Tatar rivalry? At least Nebraska is a big red machine, and Soviet Georgians might prefer a team with a bit more dawg in it. It could be a great recruiting tool, though:

“Sign with us, kid, you can see Red Square.”

“Is that anywhere near Pullman?”

“We’re playing in Russia.”

“On turf or grass?”

“Is that all you care about?”

“No. What kind of courtesy cars?”

So now Moscow, Dublin, Tokyo, London and Sweden have football. Is there no place left on earth to get away from Keith Jackson?

Let me get back to the Glasnost Bowl for a second. Are we sure it isn’t the A.C. Delco Glasnost Bowl, or the Squeezably Soft Charmin Glasnost Bowl, or the Ukrainian Farms Collective Glasnost Bowl? What a revolting development this is, corporatizing bowl games. What new Stupid Bowl Tricks await us beyond the Mobil Cotton Bowl, the USF&G; Sugar Bowl and the Mazda Gator Bowl? Yecch!

My friend Mike Littwin of the Baltimore Sun feels columnists should also be sponsored, so in his column picture he’s willing to wear an Amana hat, like the golfers do. My position on the matter echoes Andy Warhol, who said, “I’ll sell anything for money.” The notion of selling out reminds me that Vic Ziegel once wrote in The New York Post about an alleged tradition among PR men of rewarding sports columnists for mentioning their product by sending them free samples. Hopeful that the tradition survived, Ziegel ended his column with these words: Chivas Regal. Chivas Regal. Chivas Regal.

Anyway, I started out talking about the bowls, and back I go. Only an idiot would say there aren’t far too many bowls already. If the Gator Bowl, which was once semi-prestigious, now scrapes around for a 5-4-1 Michigan State team, what possible matchups can some of these other bowls offer? Off the top of my head, you could probably take all the Patriot Theme Bowls -- Independence, All-American, Liberty and Freedom -- wrap them in star-spangled paper and dump them in the river without disturbing anyone’s sleep.

It’s fine that conference champions go to a bowl. In some conferences, like the Pac-10, Big Ten, SEC, Big Eight, runner-up teams can go, too. But let’s not get so sweaty with Bowl Fever that teams with four losses go. The only bowl fit for Michigan State this season is the toilet bowl.

Bowls wield far too much influence on the college season. From the fifth week of the season, self-inflated bowl representatives in their silly colored blazers are skulking around stadiums, doing a kind of striptease with their bowl bids. (You never find a bowl rep unwilling to be interviewed. A sportswriter’s vision of hell is to be stuck on a desert island with any two NFL strength and conditioning coaches and a bowl representative.)

If you feel as I do, that the bowls are basically a good idea gone haywire, then you have a chance this weekend to root for something swell -- the sabotage of this year’s bowl games.

To make a political analogy, isn’t it kind of a drag that the primaries are so decisive that there’s never a floor fight for the presidential nomination at the conventions anymore? Lately it’s that way in college football. The suspense factor is absent. By early November, everyone knows where the No. 1 team is going to emerge from.

This year, the nouveau riche entry, the Fiesta Bowl, holds the answers. So first and foremost you have to root against the Fiesta Bowl.

Root for Syracuse to beat West Virginia. That will finish West Virginia as a serious candidate for No. 1. Syracuse never was one.

You can root for Penn State to beat Notre Dame, but it won’t happen. Save your energy until next week, and root for USC over Notre Dame. The Fiesta Bowl will be left with a whole lot of bowl and not much fiesta.

Speaking of USC, root against the Trojans, and for UCLA, on Saturday. That will get the unbeatens down to one, Arkansas, which nobody respects. Arkansas chomped on Pacific (2-8), Tulsa (2-7) and Ole Miss (4-6) for appetizers, then returned to the SWC, where everyone else is in jail. The Razorbacks made the top 10 for the first time this week. But if Notre Dame, USC and West Virginia flop, they might become No. 1 if they shock Miami on Nov. 26 and USC in the Cotton Bowl.

In that scenario, UCLA would approach the Rose Bowl with No. 1 credentials. But losing there to Michigan would mean No. 1 would be crowned elsewhere, since Michigan already lost to Notre Dame and Miami. Similarly, Florida State, a longshot No. 1, anyway, after being whomped by Miami, 31-0, in the season opener, would shoot itself in the foot by losing in the Sugar Bowl. Root for Alabama to beat Auburn on Nov. 25. That puts LSU in the Sugar Bowl, bringing at least two defeats, probably three, since it plays Miami on Saturday.

That leaves us looking at one remaining major bowl, the Orange. One slot goes to the winner of Nebraska and Oklahoma. Both teams were damaged early; Nebraska losing to UCLA, Oklahoma losing to USC. But with all this twisting and turning, either could become No. 1 by beating Miami. Not to worry, neither can beat Miami.

In my sketch pad, Miami, the nation’s best team every year since 1981, beats LSU, Arkansas (putting its No. 1 aspirations to bed) and BYU to end its regular season at 10-1, laughs as the Irish -- who ducked a rematch with the Canes in the Fiesta -- lose to USC, breezes through the Orange Bowl and wins another national championship.