The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 22

NHL: Calgary routs Tampa Bay 10-0C2 Baseball: Mavericks name Ferguson managerC3 YOUMAKETHECALL Today's question: Do you think Nebraska is the greatest college football team ever? Yos: 885-2678 No: 885-1678 Yesterday's question: Do you think the Bowl Alliance has been good for college football? (60) Yos: 83 percent No: 17 percent CRTS Paul Oboijuorgo Sport Editor (9(N) 3S6-3K6S Fax ('W9) 384-0327 Tho Sun Soction Wednesday January 3, IW6 COLLEGE FOOTBALL NEBRASKA REPEATS AS NATIONAL CHAMP Paul Obeijuerge IN THIS CORNER Sp TnHllllil i. 1 rL. 77N JIB J. A AP WIREPHOTO Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel had a forgettable game as the Gators were trounced 62-24. Inside Controversial Phillips ends season with a bang.

StoiyC3 Back-to-back championships without debate a rarity. Notebook C3 1 Nebraska wins its second consecutive national championship with a 62-24 pounding of Florida. By Mike Davis Sun Assistant Sports Editor TEMPE, Ariz. Later, Gators. The not-so-fabulous Fiesta Bowl was all Big Hod, and that rhymes with dead, which was what the Florida Gators were on a brittle evening at Sun Devil Stadium.

Nebraska's unbeatable combination of size, speed, talent and superior coaching added up to a second consecutive national championship Tuesday night, when the top-ranked Cornhuskers obliterated No. 2 Florida 62-24 before 79,864 fans in an anticli-mactic finish to the season. The Huskers completed their second successive unbeaten season, finishing 12-0 with their 25th consecutive victory, becoming the first back-to-back consensus national champion since Oklahoma in 1955-56. "It's a different feeling this time," said quarterback Tommie Frazier, who has been a big part of Nebraska's 36-1 record over the last three years. "Defending the title makes it more special.

Not many teams have won back-to-back national titles." The victory also applied an exclamation point to a tumultuous season in which coach Tom Osborne sparked a national controversy with his reinstatement of tailback Lawrence Phillips, who was suspended for six games after a September beating of a former girlfriend. "I'm glad this season is over," Osborne said afterward. "I'm ready for a vacation." The Gators (12-1) appeared to go on vacation too early like, in the second quarter, when they were outscored 29-0. turning their 10-6 lead into a 35-10 half-time deficit. Their coach, Steve Spurrier, suggested the problem was emotional as much as physical.

"For whatever reason, it seemed like Nebraska was much better prepared to play than we were," he said. "I don't know how many of our guys really played their hearts out tonight. I'm embarrassed that we couldn't make a game out of it. "We've been on the good end of some of these big scores," added Spurrier, often accused of running up the score during his team's drive to the Southeastern Conference title. "Tonight we were on the bad end and we probably deserved every bit of it.

"Nebraska was just a much 3 -met, AP WIREPHOTOS Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier (left) breaks free for a third-quarter touchdown in the Cornhuskers' 62-24 victory over Florida in the Fiesta Bowl on Tuesday. 4 better team hotter coaches, players, everything." The game was billed as the collegiate equivalent of the Super Bowl, and the Huskers made it about as competitive and entertaining as most NFL title games. The Nebraska offense was its usual overwhelming self, with Frazier and Phillips running wild behind a typically monstrous offensive line that executed (lawlessly. Frazier, the Heisman Trophy runner-up, earned player-of-the-game honors with a magnificent performance, rushing for 199 yards on 16 carries, passing for 105 and scoring two third-quarter touchdowns a 35-yard quarterback draw and a had-to-sce-it-to-belicve-it 75-yard sprint on which he broke through at least eight Florida tacklers. He also passed for a TD in the first quarter.

Phillips, reinstalled by Osborne as the starter for this game a move that reignited the controversy of midseason rushed for 165 yards on 25 attempts and scored three times: on a lti-pass in the first quarter, an electrifying 42-yard run in the second and a 15-yard run in the fourth. But Nebraska's offensive stampede wasn't entirely unexpected; the Cornhuskers led the nation in rushing (400 yards per game) and scoring (52 points per game), and the Florida defense has been suspect all season. What really turned this game into a channel-surfer's delight by halftime was Nebraska's defense, See FIESTAC3 i zV WjK, wwa JT Eti "Ak In earless Bowl Alliance tastes like stale chips TEMPE.Ariz. Well.it's back to the Tostitos Drawing Board for the geniuses who came up with the Bowl Alliance. What they gave the nation Tuesday night was the Junior Super Bowl.

An awful college football game smothered in crass commercialism, saddled with insipid commentary that took nearly four hours to play. Without an "Up With People" halftime extravaganza What's their next project? Improving the rose? Tinkering with sunsets? Making babies cuter? College football had a heck of a system going for it. It was called bowl games. The Rose. The Orange.

The Sugar. Perhaps you heard of them. Tradition, color, big crowds, predictable matchups of conference champions. Usually, when the dust settled, somebody was unbeaten and untied and calling itself national champion without much of an argument. But the poobahs of the college game, led by ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan, wanted something grander.

A bigger concept. Something they could run up a flagpole and get corporate America to salute. What we got was the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl for the Tostitos national title. No.l Nebraska vs. No.2 Florida.

What did it prove? That the Cornhuskers probably can beat the corn chips out of the Gators any time they want. That Nebraska should take this team and become the NFL's 31st franchise. And that the boys in advertising have never heard the expression "overkill." Final score: Nebraska 62, Florida 24, before a bunch of underwhelmed viewers. And those were the ones in the stadium. As if the game weren't ugly enough, it was spattered with more commercial endorsements than a NASCAR race.

The word "Tostitos" was sprayed around Sun Devil Stadium like graffiti in a bad neighborhood. Seven times. Then there was the stuff not painted on the grass. From the press box, we counted 52 Tostitos banners, posters and decals, all of them at least two feet high. And we couldn't see the Nebraska sideline.

The way it looked, the only way a television viewer could avoid seeing the word was if one of the teams ran a quarterback sneak from the right hash at the 20-yard line. Reportedly, Frito-Lay (the makers of the tortilla chip we will never, ever buy again) spent $26 million to take over this game. That works out to about $1 per exposure of their product name. It wasn't only the folks from Frito-Lay who pummeled us with commercial messages. There was Pepsi, the offical carbonated beverage of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

Budweiser, the official beer of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Ad nau-seum. This, folks, was a disaster. If we want a paean to wretched corporate excess, we'll wait for the Super Bowl, where they do it with a little more finesse and a lot less repetition. What college football needs to do is dump the Bowl Alliance.

Now. Instead of pimping its game to Madison Avenue for the dubious (and still subjective) concept of matching the two top-ranked teams, go back to the traditional bowl system. I mean, what happens if three teams go 11-0? You've got the same problem you had before; one team potentially unable to win a championship on the field. It was the Rose, the Cotton and the Orange that helped make college football great. A few more Tostitos Bowls could wreck those bowls.

Ifyou don't think so, check the attendance at the Sugar and Cotton this year. Hey, college guys. Go back to what you know New Year's bowl games. Take a chance at a couple of teams going 12-0. It can't be as big a mess as what we suffered through here Tuesday night.

Oberjuerge is sports editor of The Sun. Readers may write him at 399 North San Bernardino, 92401, or lax to (909) 384-0327. Florida coach Steve Spurrier (left) couldn't bear to watch his team's performance, while Nebraska coach Tom Osborne signifies which team istopsinthe nation during Tuesday's Fiesta Bowl. Barnett heads home, but will he return? Rose bowl 7 jfrt I Bowl, and UCLA officials are keeping mum. Dalis, though, wants a new coach in place by the end of this week as the Bruins enter an important recruiting period.

Northwestern, obviously, wants Barnett to stay, offering a 12-year contract before the Wildcats arrived for the Rose Bowl. Barnett already has a deal through 1997, but has been given permission to listen to UCLA's proposal. "We made coach Barnett a wonderful, fair offer," Northwestern president Henry Bienen said. "The offer he wanted is the offer he got. We put on the table precisely the offer he asked for." "I just hope he stays," running back Darnell Autry said, "but I really want coach Barnett to do what's best for him.

If that means leaving is best, then I want him to do that." A day after Northwestern loses in Rose Bowl, coach contemplates possible future at UCLA By Steve Wilstein The Associated Press PASADENA If UCLA doesn't woo Gary Barnett away from Northwestern, the Wildcats might not have to wait another half-century before returning to the Rose Bowl. Then again, imagine USC coach John Robinson's reaction if the Bruins do manage to lure Barnett. With UCLA's recruiting power and Barnett's motivational and coaching skills, USC could be waiting awhile before its next Rose Bowl. The game around the game is still being played out even as Northwestern flew home Tuesday after an impressive showing in a 41-32 loss to the Trojans in the Rose Bowl. Whether Barnett is using the UCLA vacancy to get a better deal out of Northwestern is unclear, but he certainly gave every appearance of being serious about the Bruins.

According to various reports, Barnett met with UCLA officials Saturday and spoke with athletic director Pete Dalis again Tuesday. Barnett's lawyer reportedly met with UCLA officials Sunday, and Barnett's wife was looking at houses in the area, though she insists she loves living in Chicago. Barnett brushed aside speculation about his future when asked before and after the Rose dm LJ8 AP WIREPHOTO Northwestern's Gary Barnett may be the next UCIA football coach. BY THE NUMBERS Lakers blow 19-point lead in loss SCORES ,.90 ,.89 76ERS LAKERS as the Lakers (16-1 6 dropped their third game and i Next: vs. Utah, 7:30 p.m.

Friday, Prime NBA Philadelphia 90, Lakers 89 Portland 101, New York 92 New Jersey 81, Milwaukee 72 Cleveland 108, Wash. 100 Seattle 111, Atlanta 88 Houston 105, Minnesota 100 Utah 102, Dallas 92 Indiana 102, Denver 87 the first quarter 23-4, but battled back to lead briefly before trailing 47-46 at halftime. "We weren't into it," Sixers forward Clarence Weathersppon (12 points, 13 rebounds) said. The Lakers regained their composure in the third quarter to take a 71-65 lead but fell apart, letting Philadelphia take an 11-point advantage (84-73) with 5:00 left in the game. Van Kxel, who had a private meeting before the game with Lakers coach Del Harris regarding the point guard's need to increase his aggressiveness, had a game-high 27 points and nine assists.

But Vernon Maxwell's 10-foot jumper with 414 seconds that gave the Sixers a 90-89 lead proved to be the game-winner. Harris want Lakrm In flrat byFab.22.NotebookC2 They fall 90-89 at home to Philadelphia as Van Exel and Ceballos both miss shots in final 10 seconds. By Albert Bui Sun Sports Writer INGLEWOOD When the Lakers are battling to make the playoffs three months from now, this will be the game they remember while they slap their palms to their foreheads. Before 1 1.874 at the Forum on Tuesday night, the Lakers blew a 19-point first-quarter lead to the Philadelphia 76ers, falling 90-89. Both Nick Van Exel and Ce-dric Ceballos had chances at game-winning shots in the last 10 seconds, but Van Exel barely hit the backboard on his 5-foot runner.

Ceballos, who snared the rebound, saw a layup rim in and out INSIDE wrapped the second road victory of the season Tor Philadelphia. "These are the kinds of game that you should take care of," said Ceballos. who scored 15 points (13 in the first halO on B-of-17 shooting. "We didn't do our jobs. We didn't take care of business.

I just shot the ball badly." The 76ers (6-22) entered the game tied with the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies for the fewest victories in the league, and they were playing without star forward Derrick Coleman. Philadelphia fell behind in C2 C2 C2 C2 C3 C3 C3 C4 C6 Local colleges NBA NHL College College football Prep basketball Baseball Scoreboard Prep sports AP WIREPHOTO LARKIN STAYS Reds owner Marge Schott extended Barry Larkin's contract three years. StoryC3.