COLLEGE FOOTBALL / GENE WOJCIECHOWSKI : Bowl Matchups Forming, but Nothing’s in Concrete

Stressful business, this college football stuff.

Already this season, an assistant coach from North Carolina and one from North Carolina State have done their Secret Service imitations and wrestled each other to the ground. At Arkansas, the classy Danny Ford was heard wishing for an opponent’s injury. At Mississippi State, Jackie Sherrill, who’s sort of in his own planetary orbit to begin with, demanded that a football be checked for helium. And it just wouldn’t be a season to remember without Lou Holtz’s poor-mouthing or Steve Spurrier’s whining.

Now then, multiply the coaching pressures by two and you have a nice idea what the assorted bowl officials are feeling these days.

For starters, their precious bowl-coalition agreement, along with the NCAA’s six-victories-against-Division-I-AA-opponents rule, has whittled the number of acceptable teams to a surprising few. In fact, by the time you pick apart the assorted bowl deals, the whole alliance contract looks like someone diagrammed a sentence from a Michener novel.

The Cliff Notes version of the bowl situation goes like this:

There are 19 bowls, 38 available invitations. Barring a multitude of upsets, which could send the fellas in the polyester jackets screaming into the night, the projected matchups are beginning to fall into place.

ROSE--UCLA vs. Ohio State.

ORANGE--Florida State-Notre Dame winner vs. Nebraska.

SUGAR--Alabama vs. Notre Dame-Florida State loser.

COTTON--Texas A&M; vs. Miami-West Virginia winner.

FIESTA--Arizona vs. Miami-West Virginia loser or Kansas State.

GATOR--Florida vs. North Carolina, Virginia or Clemson.

CITRUS--Wisconsin vs. Tennessee.

HANCOCK--Oklahoma vs. Baylor or North Carolina State.

ALAMO--Kansas State or Texas Christian vs. Oregon, California or USC.

FREEDOM--USC, Cal or Oregon vs. Fresno State or Michigan.

LIBERTY--Louisville vs. Michigan State.

HOLIDAY--Wyoming vs. Penn State.

CAR QUEST CLASSIC--Boston College vs. Kentucky or Mississippi.

HALL OF FAME--North Carolina, Virginia or Clemson vs. Indiana or Illinois.

LAS VEGAS--New Mexico State vs. Ball State or Bowling Green.

INDEPENDENCE--Virginia Tech vs. Michigan.

COPPER--Fresno State, Utah or Brigham Young vs. Colorado.

ALOHA--Kansas State vs. San Diego State.

PEACH--North Carolina, Clemson or Virginia vs. Mississippi or Kentucky.

BOWLS--PART II

Don’t grow too attached to those matchups. Some of them are as shaky as Coach Jim Colletto’s job status at Purdue.

After all, the Fiesta still could end up with a national championship, though it would take some doing. Nebraska, Ohio State and Alabama all would have to lose and Miami would have to win out for the Hurricanes to earn a No. 2 ranking and a shot at the Florida State-Notre Dame victor. The other scenario, which is even more far-fetched, has the Seminoles and Irish tying in their Nov. 13 game, thus allowing poll voters to keep the two teams ranked No. 1 and 2. Good luck.

Meanwhile, the Freedom Bowl apparently isn’t too thrilled about getting USC--or is it the other way around? Anyway, there is talk that the Alamo and Freedom are considering a swap of teams: the Freedom would take Oregon or Cal, the Alamo would pick the Trojans.

Another question mark involves the iffy status of some of the conference deals with assorted bowls. The Southwest Conference has only one team, Texas A&M;, with the required six Division I-A victories. The league needs two more teams to fulfill its end of the coalition agreement.

The same goes for the Southeastern Conference, which has deals with the Sugar, Citrus, Gator, Peach and Car Quest Classic. Finding an eligible fifth SEC entry isn’t going to be easy, especially with Auburn on probation and Georgia going down in flames.

Also to be determined is the fate of bubble teams such as Michigan, BYU, Illinois, Minnesota, Arizona State, Baylor, Cincinnati, Iowa, Navy, Army, Mississippi, Syracuse, Utah, Washington State and TCU. And there always remains the possibility that proud Michigan, embarrassed by an eventual 6-5 record, might decline a Tier III-level bowl invitation and stay home.

MARYLAND WHO?

Top-ranked Florida State plays 1-7 Maryland Saturday at College Park, Md., but you wouldn’t know it by listening to Seminole players and coaches.

Rather than bother with the usual nonsense about not looking ahead, the Seminoles are all but counting the seconds until next week’s Game of the Millennium against No. 2 Notre Dame at South Bend, Ind.

And Maryland? The Terrapins have become nothing more than an appetizer, turtle soup for the Seminoles.

“It’s hard to answer whether those boys are still focused like they should be,” Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden said. “You must keep your mind on uh . . . uh . . . uh . . . Maryland. Dangummit, now we’re going to lose for sure.”

Bowden isn’t the only one thinking about the Notre Dame game. Back in South Bend, where the Irish have an open date this week, the hype already has begun.

Notre Dame officials are calling the matchup the biggest game ever at Notre Dame Stadium. That’s high praise, considering the legacy left by Miami.

Actually, the last time the Irish won a game at home between No. 1 and No. 2 was Nov, 20, 1943, when they defeated second-ranked Iowa Preflight School. Chances are neither team was subjected to the scrutiny Florida State and Notre Dame are about to endure.

NBC, which has prayed for this day ever since it signed the big-money deal with the Irish several years ago, is treating the game as if it were for the national championship--which, in essence, it is.

Everybody with a minicam or a notepad is going nuts. So far, a record 732 media credentials have been issued by Notre Dame. Another 53 requests, including one from somebody posing as a reporter for a make-believe edition of this newspaper, have been turned down.

As November creeps toward December, weather has become a popular topic. Will it snow by kickoff, and, if it does, how will the Seminoles, many of whom think Frosty is something you buy at Wendy’s, react to the cold?

Only your meteorologist knows for sure.

But this much is fact:

--On Nov. 13, 1992, the high temperature was 38, the low 28, there were two inches of snow and 24-38 m.p.h. winds.

--In 1991, the high was 53, the low 34 and there was fog.

--In 1990, the high was 46, the low 25 and there was no precipitation.

--In 1989, the high was 72, the low 41 and the winds were clocked at 33 m.p.h.

--In 1988, the high was 50, the low 31, there was rain and 32-m.p.h. winds.

For the record, Notre Dame’s Holtz said he hopes the sky is clear, the temperature mild, the winds still and the ground green, not white, on game day. A championship matchup, he said, deserves championship conditions.

But you get the feeling that Holtz won’t be too upset if a little cold front sweeps down from Canada next weekend and turns South Bend into the South Arctic. According to Notre Dame, the Irish have yet to lose a game in the snow this century.

By the way, the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting, ta-da, snow for Nov. 13.

“Any cold we could get here and (at Maryland) would help us down the line,” Bowden said Wednesday from Tallahassee, where temperatures reached the low 70s.

THE REST

Barry Wilson, whose recent resignation as Duke’s coach is effective at season’s end, might not be leaving Durham after all. Athletic Director Tom Butters is considering offering Wilson another position at the school in a yet-undetermined capacity. “I could stay here at Duke University and feel good about it,” said Wilson, whose Blue Devil record is 12-29-1. Wilson said his resignation was a case of simple mathematics. “I’m not into goblins and black cats, but for whatever reasons, we weren’t able to pull off the wins,” he said. Rather than deal with the inevitable rumors involving his job status, Wilson decided for a clean break. “I don’t need to be told,” he said. “If I came in with some dignity and pride, I certainly wanted to step down with some dignity and pride.” Here’s guessing Wilson won’t be unemployed for long. . . . Clemson is 6-2, tied for second in the Atlantic Coast Conference and headed for another bowl. That’s not good enough for Tiger followers, who are actively lobbying for Coach Ken Hatfield’s dismissal. Something could change, especially if Clemson finishes the regular season with victories over North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina. If that happens, the Tigers will become extremely popular with the bowl folks. “We know the possibilities,” Hatfield said. “Our guys can read.” . . . Even though Auburn is undefeated, the Tigers are ineligible for consideration in the USA Today/CNN Coaches poll because of NCAA probation. “If they’re on probation,” said Florida State’s Bowden, “they should not be ranked. I think that’s a good law we have there.” Auburn is coached by Bowden’s son, Terry.

The coaches also might want to start paying attention to the actual teams they’re voting for each week. Protected by a confidentiality clause in the poll, the coaches do everyone a disservice by sloppy voting. For instance, anonymous coaching nimrods (or was it their sports information directors?) actually awarded poll points this week to Syracuse, Cal, Iowa and New Mexico State. Syracuse has lost its last two games by a combined 92-0 score. Cal hasn’t won since Oct. 2. Iowa has lost five of its last six games. New Mexico State is 5-3, a nice accomplishment for the traditionally downtrodden program, but hardly worth a point in the polls. Meanwhile, in the Associated Press poll, Nebraska beat Colorado at Boulder, 21-17, but dropped from No. 5 to No. 6. That’s one spot higher than the Cornhuskers deserve. . . . It’s official: If the game were on the line, there were only seconds remaining to be played and it meant the difference between a rematch against Florida State in the postseason for a national championship, Holtz said he would kick an extra point rather than go for a two-point conversion. Makes sense.

Top 10

1. Florida State:8-0

2. Notre Dame:9-0

3. Ohio State:8-0

4. Alabama:7-0-1

5. Auburn:8-0

6. Miami:6-1

7. Nebraska:8-0

8. Tennessee:6-1-1

9. West Virginia:7-0

10. UCLA:6-2

Waiting list: Florida (6-1), Texas A&M; (7-1), Louisville (7-1), Arizona (7-1), Wisconsin (7-1).