League still looking for place to send its champion

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 1998 | 10:32 a.m.

College football's bowl season is less than two months away, and WAC commissioner Karl Benson still is scrambling to find a place to send his conference champion.

The Holiday Bowl, which originally was bound to take either the Big 12 No. 2 or WAC champion before the conference split-up this summer, since has restructured its deal to take the Pac-10's No. 2 team, while the Big 12 No. 2 is set for the Cotton Bowl.

But it seems highly unlikely that the Holiday Bowl will take the WAC champion over a Big 12 No. 3 (Nebraska, Kansas State, Colorado, Texas A&M and Texas, with San Diego product and Heisman frontrunner Ricky Williams all in the picture) now, unless hometown favorite San Diego State was to win the WAC title.

So Benson has been frantically trying to find a guaranteed bowl berth for this year's WAC champ ... and with little luck. The latest bowl to snub its nose at the WAC? How about the Independence Bowl, once known as the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl.

Benson said during Monday's weekly WAC media conference call that the Independence Bowl, played in Shreveport, La., had passed on taking the WAC champ. Adding insult to injury, the Independence folks have opted to take the seventh choice from the Southeastern Conference and the sixth-best team from the Big 12.

"Those discussions (with the Independence Bowl) have broken down," Benson said. "The Big 12 and SEC have entered into agreements for this year and the next three years."

So Benson is trying to line up a deal for the WAC champ to play in either the Aloha Bowl (vs. Pac-10 No. 4) or the Liberty Bowl (vs. Conference USA champ).

"Both have expressed a desire to stay open (and select at-large teams)," Benson said. "But I'm trying to pursuade them to look at the WAC champion at least for this year."

The big winner (?) in all this could be the Las Vegas Bowl.

Should the Holiday, Liberty and Aloha Bowls pass, the WAC champion could be headed to the Las Vegas Bowl.

"I'm confident that the WAC champion will be attractive enough to land in either the Aloha or Las Vegas Bowl or one of two of the other bowl openings," Benson said. "And there's also the possibility that even though the Independence Bowl has locked into the SEC and Big 12 Conferences, one of those conferences might now be able to deliver a team (with the required six Division I wins needed for bowl eligibility)."

It would be easy to blame Benson for this bowl mess but WAC teams really have nobody to blame but themselves. Remember, this is a conference that hasn't had a team rated in the Top 25 in a month and is a pathetic 3-6 against the Big West Conference in nonconference matchups.

Notes

This is the first week that all 16 conference teams will be involved in playing conference games. ... Benson is set to meet with representatives from ESPN in New York on Wednesday to try to finalize agreements with that network for WAC football and basketball telecasts in 1999. ... The New York Times computer rankings has Air Force (5-1), a 35-34 loser at TCU three weeks ago, rated No. 13 in the nation. Stick to the crossword puzzles, fellas. ... UTEP (2-4, 2-1 WAC Pacific), which defeated San Jose State, 28-21, Saturday in El Paso, has won back-to-back games for the first time in 10 years. ... UNLV wasn't the only WAC team to struggle running the ball at the goal line in overtime last weekend. New Mexico got stuffed three straight tries from the one against San Diego State and had to settle for a field goal. The Aztecs answered with a 25-yard touchdown pass for a 36-33 victory in Albuquerque. ... Ted Tollner's Aztecs (3-3, 3-0), who lost their first three games to Wisconsin, USC and Arizona, have won three in a row in WAC play and are in first place in the Pacific Division heading into Saturday night's key matchup with Utah (4-2, 2-1) at Qualcomm Stadium. ... Utah quarterback Darnell Arceneaux, out for a month with a broken finger, ran five yards for the deciding touchdown in the Utes' 24-16 win over Fresno State.