Cotton Bowl has a little intrigue this year

By DOUG TUCKER /Associated Press

DALLAS - There are 64 teams in the Bowl Alliance, and if Brigham Young beats Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl, 63 will probably be hopping mad at the Wildcats.

Beating Kansas State, BYU supporters would say, shows how foolish and short-sighted the Alliance was to snub the 13-1 champions of the Western Athletic Conference.

And every coach and fan of every other WAC school would say the same.

They'll offer a BYU victory as undeniable proof that they've deserved all along to be included in the Alliance with the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference and all the other so-called big boys of college football.

Of course, neither of the Cotton Bowl's head coaches will admit this.

"I don't understand that question," said Kansas State's Bill Snyder. "The answer is probably no."

"I don't have any idea," said BYU's LaVell Edwards. "I don't feel any added pressure. I don't feel any burden to prove to anybody."

But the BYU players are not so reticent.

"If Kansas State beats us, they can say, 'See, that's why we didn't put you in an Alliance Bowl,' " said Cougar defensive back Tim McTyer. "We've talked about it among ourselves."

Despite its glittering record and No. 5 national ranking, the Cougars were not included in any of the high-paying Alliance bowls - the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta, and had to take the lesser-paying, less prestigious Cotton Bowl to meet No. 14 Kansas State.

The 16-member WAC, in fact, wasn't even invited to join the Alliance in the first place.

Cougar fans were livid. But Alliance officials held firm. Naturally, they will be silently rooting for Kansas State to hold sway in the Jan. 1 Cotton Bowl, sponsored by Southwestern Bell.

"I think the bowls maybe are rooting against us because if we do win against Kansas State, a Big 12 team, people will be saying, 'You should have let BYU in,' " McTyer said. "I think there'll be some kind of scrutiny among the Alliance people. Every BYU fan thinks we should have gone to the Alliance."

Getting snubbed by the Alliance has probably upset the BYU fans more than anyone, said Cougar quarterback Steve Sarkisian.

"I think fans at times may get a little more stubborn instead of just accepting it," he said. "They're upset. And that's nice, to know you have that kind of support, and those kind of loyal fans who want you to be the best you can."

"Our fans are great," said McTyer. "We'll go out somewhere and people will tell us we've been robbed."

The Alliance was formed among the major bowls and conferences in an effort to get a national championship game every year. The Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls on a rotating basis are allowed to match the two top-ranked teams. The Big Ten and Pac-10, who send their champions to the Rose Bowl, have agreed to link up with the Alliance in a couple of years.

"If they'd wanted us, they'd have invited us to join in the first place ... so it was no surprise," said Edwards, whose unbeaten Cougars won the 1984 national championship.

"As far as the Alliance is concerned, my position is if in fact they are genuinely interested in doing what's right for college football and what's going to give them a true champion, then what they need to do is include everybody. They need to include the WAC, and Conference USA, and provide opportunities for us to win our way into it. That's all we need.

"If the WAC should meet certain criteria, then they ought to be a part of it, to be fair."