Mike Berardino is a staff writer for The Augusta Chronicle.FILE

Web posted December 30, 1997

By Mike Berardino
Columnist

MIAMI -- If a college football team wins a small-fry bowl game in a nearly empty stadium, does anybody care?

Georgia Tech hopes so after Monday night's 35-30 win over West Virginia in the eighth -- and, one would think, perhaps final -- Snorefest, er, Carquest Bowl. But deep down the Yellow Jackets have to know the real answer.

No way.

Earlier Monday they held something called the Sports Humanitarian Bowl out in Boise, Idaho. Somebody needs to send those folks to Pro Player Stadium so they can put this sucker out of its misery.

Midway through the second quarter, Carquest Bowl organizers stumbled upon a potential game-saver when they aired a clip from Rudy on the Jumbotron. There was a smattering a applause, followed by bemused laughter when Sean Astin's boyish mug was replaced on the screen by that of a young woman holding a cordless microphone.

She was in the stands. She was giggling. She was on.

``Uh ... it's Rudy!!!'' she yelped.

A brainstorm hit: Why not pass the mike through the stands until everybody's had a chance? Maybe even rename this thing the Karaoke Bowl (patent pending)? Now there's a gimmick nobody's cashed in on yet.

Officially, the crowd was pegged at 28,262, more than 6,000 below the previous Snorefest low, set by North Carolina-Arkansas in 1995.

Realistically, Monday's number was probably closer to 20,000.

In a stadium that seats 75,000, that makes for a ton of empty orange seats. It also makes for a pathetic sporting environment and a questionable future for this game.

We're not saying the place was lonely, but we'd swear we spotted Bob Uecker way up there ``in the front row.'' Traffic before the game wasn't bad, but the real challenge came trying to swim past all the ``scalpers'' attempting to force gobs of spare tickets into unsuspecting hands. For free.

Of course, Tech folks weren't too worried about any of this reality stuff. The Jackets were far more interested in crowing about their first bowl trip in six seasons and their 18th win in 26 bowls all-time.

Good thing, too. Had Tech lost, its bowl winning percentage would have dropped to .654. That would have dropped the Jackets from first all-time to third, behind Penn State (.667) and Southern California (.658).

In that respect, folks on the Flats are sort of like Al Davis. Darth Raider has been tossing out that musty old stat for years now, the one about how the Silver-and-Black has the best winning percentage in sports -- any sport -- since the mid-'60s. We're not sure, but we think this year's 4-12 clunker with Boy George finally knocked Al's boys from their exalted perch.

OK, we kid, but Tech hasn't lost a bowl game since December 1978, when Mark Herrmann (remember him?) passed Purdue to a 41-21 win in the Peach.

(Wacky aside: Monday's episode of The Jenny Jones Show was devoted to a nostalgic look at two gigantic forces of '70s television, Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. Interestingly enough, Donny (Ralph Malph) Most no longer goes by Donny. He wants to be called Don. And judging from his additional chins, the Big Ragu apparently goes by the Bigger Ragu. But we digress.)

For awhile Monday, it looked as though Tech's seeing-eye defense was determined to blow yet another comfortable lead. They let Famous Amos Zereoue run wild -- and he isn't even the best player in the Mountaineer State. They let some receiver named Jerry Porter do his imitation of Randy Moss -- who is the best player from the backwoods.

In the end, the Jackets had just enough Joe Hamilton, just enough Charles Wiley and just enough collective grit to hold on. Perhaps this 7-5 season will lead to bigger things. Then again, maybe it won't.

This tree wasn't very tall, and this forest wasn't very crowded.