NOT BOWLED OVER / ALLIANCE BOWLS

College football’s bowl bids are being sorted out, but what a batch of bad bowls it will be. I haven’t seen this many dogs since the Iditarod.

As I scan the tentative lineup, the only bowl games with any appeal are the one between Michigan and Washington State and the one between Air Force and To Be Announced. Having seen Air Force’s team on TV, I doubt it can beat To Be Announced.

Unhappy New Year, everybody. Take a bottle of champagne . . . and bust it over your TV set.

A few of these bowls are so dull, alumni won’t watch. Pittsburgh against Southern Mississippi on New Year’s Eve? Be still my heart. Give me the Liberty Bowl or give me death. On further consideration, give me death.

The alliance--which is not a new automobile by Plymouth--has a (ho, ho, ho) “national championship” game scheduled for Jan. 2, 1998. It comes one day after the No. 1 ranked team in America plays in a different bowl, the one in Pasadena.

That means the Orange Bowl could be the first championship game in history after which the winners shout, “We’re No. 2!”

Worse yet, we don’t even know if No. 2 Nebraska and No. 3 Tennessee are going to be in the Orange Bowl. For all I know, they will end up in that Outback Steakhouse Bowl, or that Outhouse Steakback Bowl, or whatever it is.

Nebraska still has to play No. 14 Texas A&M.; (And you know how tough those Aggies can be in a big game, when they have a chance to celebrate afterward at the big dance at the Chicken Ranch.)

Tennessee still has to play No. 11 Auburn, which is a fine team coached by one of college football’s 800 or 900 Bowdens. (In fact, I believe of the 40 teams that will be in bowl games, 36 are coached by a Bowden or a son of a Bowden.)

What if A&M; and Auburn win?

Then we get an Orange that’s the pits. The No. 2 team in the nation would be . . . let’s see . . . I think Mater Dei High.

If Michigan is able to defeat Washington State, the top-ranked team will be 12-0 and you can’t be much better than that.

I know, Nebraska is 11-0 with a shot at 13-0. But fairly or unfairly, the Cornhuskers are No. 2. They have been ranked there ever since that nutty game at Missouri, which they won with 0:00 left on the clock on a pass that bounced off 22 players, a cheerleader’s uncle, a Gatorade bucket, the Stanford student body, the California band, the governor of Missouri, a guy carrying a John 3:14 sign and a mascot dressed up like a large ear of corn.

Nebraska barely got by Colorado on Saturday. It did, at least, defeat Central Florida, an achievement in Nebraska football that probably won’t be duplicated until next year’s big game against Central Florida State.

No, the “national championship” will be settled in the Rose Bowl, not the Orange Bowl, alliance lovers. I presume that Michigan will win, with Charles Woodson scoring four touchdowns, making four interceptions and winning first prize in the float competition at the parade.

If Washington State is able to defeat Michigan, it will be because Ryan Leaf wants to fulfill his fondest desire in life before being forced to quarterback the Indianapolis Colts or Chicago Bears.

I can’t believe that the best bowl game is going to be one that involves a Washington State team ranked eighth. Things will be better when the Rose Bowl officially joins the alliance and raises some extra money by becoming the Rose Bowl Presented By FTD, or the Rose Bowl Presented By Poulan Thorn Eater, or whatever the plan is.

Things sure are changing. In 2002, I probably will be covering a Rose Bowl game between Army and Navy.

This season’s bowl lineup includes:

* The Las Vegas Bowl. (Featuring the world-famous Tournament of Craps parade.)

* The Motor City Bowl. (A big game involving Marshall or Toledo, a sentence I have never written until now.)

* The Insight.Com Bowl. (/www.godhelpus.com/)

* The Humanitarian Bowl. (In which a truly humanitarian gesture would be to let the other school win.)

* And, of course, the Carquest Bowl. (An American tradition since the mid-90s.)

My favorite matchup is the surprise Fiesta Bowl get-together of Kansas State and Syracuse, a game that should keep TV viewers on the edges of their seats all the way up to the kickoff, at which point they can go back into the kitchen. You know, Kansas State-Syracuse is one of those games you dream about, like Notre Dame versus Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, or Yale versus Hartford.

I usually love the bowl games. Not this time. I can’t find a one that I can’t wait to see.

About the only excitement is which lucky young woman will be voted this year’s Insight.Com Queen.