Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 3, 1993 TAG: 9311030013
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The bowl coalition was supposed to curtail the under-the-table dealings in college football, and to some extent it has. Lesser bowls have locked in agreements with conferences to try to assure a more intriguing matchup for the Ginsu Knives Hair Club for Men John Quincy Adams Ty-D Bowl.
Then, a funny thing happened on the way to the 1993 national championship. The games were played, and in no surprise to those who have said that 19 postseason games are far too many, some conferences have the depth of your breakfast bowl of corn flakes.
What that means this year is that deserving teams likely won't be left out of the bowl daze. Maybe, but you have to play the game. And two athletic directors who should be spraining their button-punching fingers on the phone in the next couple of weeks are Dave Braine of Virginia Tech and Jim Copeland of Virginia.
Tech and UVa have been to bowls in the same season only once before, 1984, when the Hokies got a bid to the Bruce Smith Injunction Independence Bowl and the Cavaliers made their postseason debut in the George Welsh Program Proving Peach Bowl.
The commonwealth's two Division I-A programs are primed to go bowling again. Each needs only one more victory after 6-2 starts. Although the Big East and ACC are lobbying for their respective teams, Braine and Copeland should leave nothing to chance. A conference may have to sell its teams against one another, depending on a bowl's wants.
The Big East has two coalition slots and a third berth in the Carquest Bowl. The ACC has two coalition berths and third and fourth spots in the Peach and Hall of Fame bowls. Depending on how the season plays out, Tech could be fourth in the Big East and UVa fifth in the ACC.
Neither is likely, but each is possible. And despite lathered-up alumni notions, the Nov. 20 Tech-Virginia game at Scott Stadium doesn't figure to play more than a bit part in the bowl situation, unless either team loses its next two games. Conference play is more crucial.
Tech-UVa is more likely to be played for poll purposes. This is the first time in history that both schools have been in the Associated Press rankings in the same week, but bowls are more important than polls.
If left to scramble, the Hokies could find a berth in the Independence or the Alamo, or even in a discussed scenario among the coalition, two Texas bowls, the Southwest Conference and the Big East. With the Southeastern Conference in jeopardy of not qualifying a fifth team for a Carquest spot, UVa could fill in. The ACC has phoned that bowl and the Alamo. The Freedom has a vacancy, too, but that Anaheim, Calif., game is a stretch for Virginia's teams.
There always are not-so-obvious reasons why bowls want teams, reasons that have nothing to do with who's better than whom. One could impact Virginia Tech, because it involves the Hokies' foe Saturday in a Big East battle for third place at Boston College.
The Big East has discussed committing a fourth team to the new Alamo Bowl against a third team from the SWC. The SWC's No. 2 team is expected to be available to the John Hancock Bowl, which doesn't want Baylor because the Bears didn't bring many fans to El Paso, Tex., last winter. So, the Hancock may be interested in swapping its SWC slot for a Big East team, providing there isn't an iffy third Southwest team to fill the Alamo.
Here's the rest of the story: John Hancock, the insurance firm, is in the last year of its contract as the bowl's sponsor. It may or may not renew. What might help put a new John Hancock on a contract, it's been whispered, is if Boston College plays in the John Hancock Bowl - because the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. has its headquarters in Boston.
The Liberty Bowl already has secured Louisville and a team from the Big Ten, which will get at least six bowl berths. The Independence has all but declared for Cincinnati (6-3), which hasn't played in a bowl since the 1950 Sun, four years after the Bearcats beat rookie bowler Virginia Tech in the same game.
Bowl bids are not always won on the field. Consider these teams' offenses and defenses. Braine and Copeland have more electricity to sell than those orange pants. Carole Braine and Susan Copeland will just have to understand. When their husbands start kissing up to bowlers in polyester blazers this month, it's for money, not love.
by CNB