ABC NOT BOWLED OVER BY PROCESS.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

Maybe now that ABC doesn't have the Bowl Championship Series in its long-term plans, it's easier for the network to be a little more critical about the skewed-up process of deciding who plays for college football's national championship.

For starters, ABC isn't too keen on having two bowls compete for attention this January, which is what happened at the end of last season with the Rose and Sugar bowls controversy surrounding USC's exclusion from the BCS title game in New Orleans.

But the same type of scenario is unfolding with three unbeaten teams and only two spots to fill in the Orange Bowl BCS title game on Jan. 4. USC and Oklahoma are on target to go to Miami, but the attention given to an equally deserving Auburn in the Jan. 3 Sugar Bowl could help ABC stretch out the controversy and suck in more viewers, right? Not really.

``Last year a lot of people, right or wrong, after USC beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl thought the championship race was over and we didn't do the (ratings) numbers for the BCS game (between LSU and Oklahoma) that we anticipated,'' Loren Matthews, ABC's executive in charge of programming, said in a conference call this week. ``We thought we had a 1 and 1A title game, but in reality we didn't.

``It just leads me to conclude that we just have to sit back and let what comes, comes. We can't control it anyway.''

The Sugar Bowl (14.8) barely outrated the Rose (14.3) nationally, but to Los Angeles viewers, the Rose (23.0 rating and 42 share) clearly caramelized the Sugar (13.3 and 20).

On Saturday, ABC sandwiches the USC-UCLA game in at 1:30 p.m. between Virginia Tech and Miami (10 a.m.), a game that will decide the ACC title, and the Big 12 title game between Colorado and Oklahoma (5 p.m.). The SEC Championship game between Auburn and Tennessee on CBS (3 p.m.) is just as important a piece of the puzzle, as is No. 4 Cal's make-up matchup at Southern Miss on ESPN (4:45 p.m.).

On Sunday, the BCS officially will announce its four major bowl pairings in a one-hour special that ABC airs at 2 p.m., and the arguments start up all over again about this BCS system that ABC relinquished control to Fox starting in 2007, although it will keep the Rose Bowl through 2014.

``Last year's so-called championship game left a bad taste in everyone's mouth,'' ABC game analyst Gary Danielson said. ``And it's happening again. It's too good a sport to come out with a bad ending, and I don't like the ending.''

ABC studio analyst Craig James added: ``We're splitting hairs this year. There are three teams deserving of playing in the national championship game, someone's going to be left out of it and it's not right.''

Throw in the fact that veteran play-by-play man Keith Jackson thinks one-loss Cal might be the second-best team in the country right now, and it leads James to ask: ``We're saying we have one versus two, but do we really?''

--Fair or foul? The decision by USC coach Pete Carroll to uncharacteristically go for a fake punt with his team ahead by 24 points and seven minutes to play in Saturday's game against Notre Dame didn't draw much criticism at the time from either Jackson or analyst Dan Fouts.

All Jackson offered after the play on the telecast was: ``You know, this margin of victory was allegedly taken away in the BCS ... allegedly.'' Then USC scored the touchdown to go ahead by 31.

Asked again about the play Tuesday, Jackson didn't find fault.

``Pete said it was a play he had in his pocket a few years and wanted to try it, and I'm satisfied with that answer,'' Jackson said. ``If I thought it was unfair or arrogant or for the sake of points, I would have said more about it. I didn't feel he was reaching for a point spread.''

Noting that a coach in Carroll's position might have to put a few extra points on the scoreboard to ensure a No. 1 ranking in this crazy computer- added system of determining a national championship, Danielson was more straightforward.

``I thought it was disgusting,'' Danielson said on the conference call. ``It's because of the system we have. It forces coaches to do that. If we had a different system where USC wouldn't have to worry about the score, it wouldn't have been done. That was just poor sportsmanship.''

--Going for two: With Charley Steiner in on a two-year contract to replace Ross Porter on play-by-play, the Dodgers' current focus continues to be hiring two more analysts for their broadcast team.

One, preferably a recently retired player, will be for TV only on the 50-odd Midwest and East Coast road games for KCOP-Channel 13 and FSN West 2 that Vin Scully isn't doing (leaving Steiner and Rick Monday to step in on play-by-play). The other is a full-time radio colorman to work with Steiner and Monday between the fourth and ninth innings on games Scully does after the simulcast ends.

Sources say the fact that the Dodgers are willing to pay a modest $1,000 a game for the TV position and $500 a game for the radio opening is the reason why former Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros almost immediately pulled his name from consideration recently.

Former Dodgers Steve Sax and Al Downing appear to be the leading candidates for the TV and radio jobs, respectively.

On the radio side, the plan is to also replace Stu Nahan on the KFWB-AM (980) pregame show with Tommy Hawkins, who has been a front-office employee in community relations since the late '70s but has plenty of local TV and radio background.

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES

--NBC has set up an e-mail address (ebersolfamily(at)nbcuni.com) for those wishing to send condolences to the family of network sports chief Dick Ebersol and his wife Susan St. James after the loss of their 14-year-old son, Teddy, last week when their private plane crashed outside of Aspen, Colo. Because of Teddy Ebersol's work with the Litchfield County Association for Retarded Citizens, the family is asking that any donations be made in his memory to that organization and sent to: LARC Capital Campaign, In Memory of Teddy Ebersol, 84R Main Street, Torrington, CT 06790. Phone: [phone].

WHAT CHOKES

--Did the Angels get the short end of KCAL-Channel 9's decision this week to begin an eight-year contract with the Dodgers starting in 2006? You bet your Arte Moreno they did. Not only did this catch the Angels by surprise, but the problem will come when they try to find a new over-the-air station to carry their games. KTLA-Channel 5, the station once owned by late Angels founder Gene Autry, is locked into WB programming in prime time, which would discourage any kind of Angels 50-game package this summer. The best Channel 5 might be able to do is give it Clippers-like treatment with weekend games. KDOC-Channel 56 is an option, but KCOP-Channel 13, which will gladly be giving up the Dodgers so it can run its UPN programming, is a long shot. The Angels could add more games on FSN West, which did 81 games last season, but that hardly fulfills owner Moreno's goal to televise every game, as he almost did even in the patchwork manner last season.

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By Tom Hoffarth