Breakthrough Season Awaits Football Fans New Bowl Alliance Among Several Big Changes

From coaches to bowls and conferences, it’s out with the old and in with the new.

While the 80-year-old Southwest Conference plays its final season, a new overtime rule, a new bowl alliance and new coaches at several national powers will make their debuts in college football.

The SWC, which produced five national champions, five Heisman Trophy winners and some of the sport’s fiercest rivalries, will disband after the 1995 season following a long period of decline triggered by a series of NCAA scandals.

Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor will join the Big Eight, which will be called the Big 12. SMU, TCU and Rice will enter the Western Athletic Conference, and Houston will be a member of the new Conference USA.

“Some of these schools won’t ever be playing each other again, and that’s sad,” said former Baylor coach Grant Teaff.

Texas A&M, coming off NCAA probation along with Auburn and Washington, is heavily favored to win the SWC’s last title and also is considered a strong contender for the national championship.

The Aggies are ranked third in the Associated Press preseason poll, behind Florida State and defending national champion Nebraska.

Florida State is the preseason No. 1 for the fourth time in eight years, while Nebraska will try to become the first team in 16 years to win consecutive national titles.

Florida State, Nebraska and Texas A&M all have talented, experienced quarterbacks, Heisman-caliber running backs, and only a few dangerous opponents on their schedules. Rounding out the preseason Top 10 are Penn State, Florida, Auburn, Southern Cal, Tennessee, Notre Dame and Alabama, which can’t go to a bowl because of NCAA probation.

The bowl coalition has been replaced by the bowl alliance, an agreement under which the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls will rotate as the site of a likely national championship game.

The Fiesta will host the top alliance game this season on the night of Jan. 2. The game will match No. 1 against No. 2, unless one or both is from the Big Ten or Pac-10, which will continue to send their champions to the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl.

All the other traditional tie-ins between leagues and bowls (Big Eight-Orange, Southeastern-Sugar, SWC-Cotton) have been scrapped, greatly improving the chances of a true national championship game.

“It’s the closest we’ve gotten to a playoff,” said Florida State coach Bobby Bowden. “If we could just get the Big Ten and Pac-10 to join in, we could have a 1-2 game every year.”

The Fiesta and Rose will pay their teams about $8.5 million apiece, the highest payout in bowl history. While payments are up, the crowded New Year’s Day lineup is down to six games - the Rose, Orange, Cotton, Gator, Citrus and Outback (formerly Hall of Fame). The Sugar Bowl, traditionally played Jan. 1, has been moved to New Year’s Eve.

If any bowl game is tied at the end of regulation, overtime will be used for the first time. Instead of an NFL sudden-death system, the bowls will use the tiebreaker popularized in lower-division NCAA playoffs.

In overtime, each team gets an offensive series starting at the opponent’s 25-yard line. The possession continues until a team scores, turns the ball over or fails to convert a fourth-down play. They keep playing until the tie is broken after each team has had a possession.

Another new rule, designed to reduce taunting and showboating, prohibits players from removing their helmets on the field. A violation results in a 15-yard penalty.

Twenty-one teams have new head coaches, including seven schools that have won national championships in one of the major polls,

Butch Davis takes over at Miami, Lloyd Carr at Michigan, Rick Neuheisel at Colorado, Howard Schnellenberger at Oklahoma, Nick Saban at Michigan State, Gerry DiNardo at LSU, and George O’Leary at Georgia Tech.

Schnellenberger, who coached Miami to the national title in 1983, says job turnover “goes with the territory.” But Bowden, who guided Florida State to the national championship in 1993, thinks the growing pressure to win makes it more difficult for coaches to stay in one place for a long time.

The season opens Aug. 26 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, where the Wolverines play Virginia in the Pigskin Classic. The following day, Ohio State meets Boston College in the Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

All four teams are expected to go to bowls. The expectations aren’t quite so lofty at Ohio University and Iowa State, which meet Aug. 31 in a contest between the only two winless teams in Division I-A last season.

Another noteworthy date is Sept. 30, when Notre Dame visits Ohio State to mark the 60th anniversary of the first “Game of the Century.” The Fighting Irish rallied to beat the Buckeyes 18-13 in that battle of unbeatens on a last-minute touchdown pass by Bill Shakespeare.

Being mentioned as Heisman Trophy contenders are quarterbacks Tommie Frazier of Nebraska, Ron Powlus of Notre Dame, Danny Kanell of Florida State, Danny Wuerffel of Florida, and Peyton Manning of Tennessee; running backs Lawrence Phillips of Nebraska, Leeland McElroy of Texas A&M, Warrick Dunn of Florida State and Stephen Davis of Auburn; and receivers Keyshawn Johnson of Southern Cal, Kevin Jordan of UCLA, Bobby Engram of Penn State and Derrick Mayes of Notre Dame.

They’re all offensive players, which shouldn’t be surprising.