L.A.'S BIG DAY; SMILE FOR THE CAMERAS : TV PAYS WELL TO HAVE THIS DOUBLEHEADER ORCHESTRATED.

Byline: Kevin Modesti Daily News Staff Writer

When ABC Sports said, ``Jump,'' USC said, ``How far?'' The answer was, ``One week.''

And that's how USC's big game against Florida State at the Coliseum came to be rescheduled for Saturday - within hours of UCLA's big game against Tennessee at the Rose Bowl.

Florida State is ranked fifth by the Associated Press. Tennessee is ranked third and has the leading Heisman Trophy candidate in quarterback Peyton Manning. Never before have two football teams of this stature visited Los Angeles on the same day.

Ohio State was No. 20 when it lost to USC 42-3 on Sept. 23, 1989 - right before No. 5 Michigan beat UCLA 24-23.

``This is the convergence of the moons, that you have these two top-10 teams coming to town on the same day,'' said USC sports information director Tim Tessalone.

Tennessee-UCLA is scheduled for 12:30 p.m., Florida State-USC for 5 p.m. There may be drawbacks to such a crosstown doubleheader, but there are about a quarter-million benefits for USC.

A Pacific-10 Conference school that hosts a regionally televised game receives about $250,000 from the network (the exact amount to be known only after revenue-sharing calculations are completed following the season). A Pac-10 school that hosts a nationally televised game receives about $500,000.

On the schedule formulated years ago, USC was to host Washington State on Saturday and Florida State on Sept. 13. By flip-flopping the dates, USC allowed ABC to turn the Florida State game into a national telecast and keep L.A. fans glued to the TV set all day and night.

This is something ABC has done before: Show a September USC home game in prime time for much of the country in years like this when USC-Notre Dame is played in South Bend, Ind., in the afternoon.

``We were looking to create a prime-time game in September,'' said Jon Litner, vice president of programming at ABC Sports. ``This one, because of the success of Florida State nationally in terms of competing for the national championship the last 10 years and the emergence of Bobby Bowden as one of the all-time great coaches, and USC, with its unbelievable tradition, we thought it was sort of a unique opportunity to take the old vs. the new.

``We realize when we ask a school to move a date, it creates an inconvenience. So we don't do it unless we have a very good reason.''

Once ABC made its decision about a year ago - the network works that far in advance - its first step was to contact the Pac-10. The Pac-10 forwarded the request to USC. ABC also checked with Florida State. Everybody liked the idea.

``It's not uncommon that games are moved for television,'' said USC's Tessalone. ``They (the networks) have rather lucrative contracts with us and we try to accommodate them as much as we can.''

``The opportunities to get a prime-time national game are few and far between,'' said Duane Lindberg, the Pac-10's assistant commissioner for electronic communications.

Perhaps surprisingly, Pac-10 protocol didn't call for UCLA officials to be consulted about the move, which costs the Bruins a free shot at the city's college football fans with a game it scheduled for this date about a decade ago.

Maybe more surprisingly, UCLA seems to have no objection to sharing the day with its rival.

``I guess, theoretically, it could (affect attendance),'' said Marc Dellins, UCLA's sports information director. ``But I don't know if there's that much of a crossover. I think most people are either UCLA fans or USC fans and having two games on the same day won't impact either school.''

On the day of the two big games in 1989, Ohio State-USC drew 69,876 fans to the Coliseum in the afternoon and Michigan-UCLA drew 71,797 to the Rose Bowl in the evening.

USC's average crowd for games against t`op-10 opponents - excluding rivals UCLA and Notre Dame - in the post-John McKay era is 68,657. UCLA's average for such big opponents - other than USC - since moving into the Rose Bowl in 1982 is 68,220.

This week, USC is projecting a crowd of about 75,000 while UCLA is expecting about 55,000. Of course, the slow UCLA ticket sales may have something to do with the apparent mediocrity of the Bruins team and the fact school hasn't started yet.

In any case, both Tessalone and Dellins said, the biggest impact on attendance will be the mere fact the games are on TV.

UCLA is looking at the bright side: The ABC spotlight on USC will also illuminate UCLA - whose game will be televised to 60 percent of the country - because this will be presented as football-fest in a place that's relatively football-mad for a big city. Sports Illustrated, for whose attention the college publicists pine like lovesick teen-agers, is considering an L.A. mood piece.

How many fans who might have attended both games if they were on different dates will have to miss one Saturday? How many will try to go to both? The school spokesmen don't pretend to know.

The real logistical nightmare for anybody trying to do the Rose Bowl-Coliseum double may be caused by a third game. Anybody driving on the 110 Freeway late Saturday afternoon could run into traffic leaving the Marlins-Dodgers baseball game at Dodger Stadium - right between the Coliseum and Rose Bowl - that begins at 1:05 p.m.

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Photo: UCLA may only have half the Rose Bowl filled for its home opener against Tennessee on Saturday afternoon.Imagine what another broiling hot day will do to those metal seats at the Pasadena stadium.

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