Bowled Over by Holidays

Your TV guide to Bowl Season 2001-02, also known as “The Long Buildup to the Big Anticlimax” ...

TODAY

TV: Ch. 7

Bowl: Las Vegas

Topic: History

Time: 12:30 p.m.

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USC, Utah reenact the 1993 Freedom Bowl, reminding everyone who had forgotten why the Freedom Bowl went out of business.

THURSDAY

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Seattle

Topic: Panel Discussion

Time: 1 p.m.

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Georgia Tech and Stanford discuss strategies on how to keep your football coach from jumping to Notre Dame. Special guest George O’Leary details the fine art of resume enhancement.

*

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Independence

Topic: Magic

Time: 4:30 p.m.

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Alabama--on the eve of NCAA probation, stuck in Shreveport, forced to play Iowa State without four suspended players--prepares to disappear completely, with or without the puff of smoke.

FRIDAY

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Galleryfurniture.com

Topic: Shopping

Time: 10:30 a.m.

*

Texas A&M; plays Texas Christian in Houston, while the other 49 states spend the morning at the mall.

*

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Music City

Topic: Close Encounters

Time: 2 p.m.

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Boston College, which almost beat Miami, plays Georgia in a third-tier bowl game in Nashville because Boston College didn’t beat Miami.

*

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Holiday

Topic: Debate

Time: 5:30 p.m.

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Topic on the table: If Major Applewhite, who starts at quarterback for Texas in this one, had started for Texas all season instead of Chris Simms, where would the Longhorns be spending their holidays this season--the Fiesta Bowl or the Rose Bowl?

SATURDAY

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Motor City

Topic: Breaking News

Time: 9 a.m.

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Two winning football teams, Toledo (9-2) and Cincinnati (7-4), play at the Silverdome. Detroit hasn’t seen anything like it all year.

*

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Alamo

Topic: Basketball

Time: 12:30 p.m.

*

ESPN wishes. Texas Tech vs. Iowa. Bob Knight vs. Steve Alford. How ‘bout them ratings?

*

TV: ESPN2

Bowl: Insight.com

Topic: Religion

Time: 2:30 p.m.

*

Kansas State Coach Bill Snyder, equipped with the personality of a blocked punt, winds up in a dot.com bowl in the Arizona desert. Scholars conclude this to be important evidence supporting the theory of the existence of a higher being.

MONDAY

TV: Ch. 2

Bowl: Sun

Topic: Science Fiction

Time: 9 a.m.

*

Washington State, which went 67 years between Rose Bowl appearances, and Purdue, which went 34 years between Rose Bowl appearances, preview the 2036 Rose Bowl.

*

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Humanitarian

Topic: Education

Time: 9:30 a.m.

*

Clemson agrees to buy $600,000 worth of tickets for the right to play Louisiana Tech on blue plastic turf in Boise on New Year’s Eve. Given the same option, UCLA decides to pass, demonstrating the value of a UC diploma.

*

TV: FSN

Bowl: Silicon Valley

Topic: Game Show

Time: Noon

*

Spartan Stadium teems with NFL scouts as Fresno State’s David Carr and Michigan State’s Jeff Smoker play “Who Wants to Be a Multimillionaire?” Black-tie, black-shirt, black-coat affair canceled when Regis Philbin can’t find San Jose.

*

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Liberty

Topic: Legal Affairs

Time: 1 p.m.

*

After spending most of the season undefeated and threatening to sue its way into a BCS bowl game, BYU finds itself in Memphis playing Louisville after lawyers scrutinize BCS contract and discover obscure must-hold-Hawaii-under-60-points clause.

*

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Peach

Topic: Politics

Time: 4:30 p.m.

*

Auburn, which defeated Florida, and North Carolina, which defeated Florida State, provide Democratic Party pointers for 2004.

TUESDAY, JAN. 1

TV: ESPN

Bowl: Outback

Topic: Too Darn Early

Time: 8 a.m.

*

Ohio State and South Carolina have to get up and play the same game they played last year. But they’re not the ones with the hangovers.

*

TV: Ch. 11 Bowl: Cotton

Topic: Liar’s Club

Time: 8 a.m.

*

One year removed from the national championship, Oklahoma stoops to play Arkansas, which finished 4-4 in the SEC. Notre Dame officials are called in to examine the veracity of Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops’ recent statement that “We’re excited for the opportunity to compete against Arkansas. It’ll be a great challenge.”

*

TV: Ch. 4

Bowl: Gator

Topic: Remembrance

Time: 9:30 a.m.

*

A fond look back at the 2000 Sugar Bowl matchup, when Virginia Tech and Florida State played for the national championship before Michael Vick and Chris Weinke left for their current assignments: holding down the bottom of the NFC West.

*

TV: Ch. 7

Bowl: Citrus

Topic: Spring Training Preview

Time: 10 a.m.

Michigan Wolverines travel to Orlando to take an early look at New York Yankee prospect Drew Henson and another look at why they’re not playing in the Rose Bowl.

*

TV: Ch. 7

Bowl: Fiesta Bowl

Topic: National Championship Game

Time: 1:30 p.m

*

Colorado defeated Nebraska by 26 points, Oregon won the toughest college football conference in the country and back when humans decided these things instead of computers, that was the sort of stuff that mattered.

*

TV: Ch. 7

Bowl: Sugar

Topic: Fantasy

Time: 5:30 p.m.

*

LSU, perhaps the third best team in the SEC, and Illinois, picked eighth in the Big Ten in some preseason polls, step onto the Superdome field, take a long wide-eyed look around the place, shake their heads and ask one another, “What in the world are we doing here?”

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 2

TV: Ch. 7

Bowl: Orange

Topic: Thriller

Time: 5 p.m.

*

Suspenseful tale of how the BCS almost wound up with Maryland in its title game before Florida State saves the day--and ABC’s Rose Bowl ratings--by ending the Terrapins’ run at an undefeated season.

THURSDAY, JAN. 3

TV: Ch. 7

Bowl: Rose

Topic: Consumer Affairs

Time: 5 p.m.

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Halftime show highlight: The Nebraska marching band, overcome by unrelenting pangs of guilt, spells out the word F-R-A-U-D.

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T.J. Simers had the day off.