By Bob Markus

Pardon me for mixing cliches, not to mention metaphors, but if you can't go home again at least you can let the mountain come to Muhammad. It's been more than 20 years since I last experienced the excitement and enthusiasm of a college football championship game and I won't be in the press box at Dolphins Stadium Thursday night when Florida and Oklahoma play in the BCS title game. But I could be the first writer to arrive at the postgame press party.

You see, the media headquarters for the national championship game is the Harbor Beach Marriott, which literally is in my back yard. It's right around the corner from my condo apartment and, in fact, there is a sign in the office window of our building proclaiming: This Is Not The Marriott, with an arrow pointing in the right direction. Until last year, when a beach front monstrosity was erected in front of us (I was sorely tempted to pull a Howard Roarke on it), the Marriott was the only building between me and the Atlantic Ocean.

I now must apologize for this digression, but although I know all MY readers know who Howard Roarke is, in case you just stumbled upon this while searching for You Tube, Howard Roarke was the architect in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead who dynamites his own building because it was not built to his exact design specifications. We artists are touchy that way.

Anyway, although I am not credentialled for Thursday's game, my Football Writer's Association of America card should let me into most media functions, as long as they don't inspect it closely enough to see it expired last Sept. 1. So, although I probably won't do it, I can watch the game on TV and then walk over to the postgame feed while the rest of the ink-stained wretches are still pushing and shoving each other into the interview room at the stadium. By the time they write their stories and catch the last shuttle back to the hotel I could have my stomach stuffed with goodies and be a couple of hours into a good night's sleep, perchance to dream.

And, for me, a No. 1 vs. No. 2 college football matchup is the stuff dreams are made of. I covered a number of them in my 36 years writing sports for The Chicago Tribune. Some of them were disappointing in one way or another. My first 1-2 matchup was more unsatisfying than disappointing. It was the 10-10 tie between Michigan State and Notre Dame in which Ara Parseghian chose to run out the last minute and a half and take the tie, although his Irish had reasonable field position. It was not an exciting game but it featured some bigtime defensive players like Bubba Smith for Michigan State and Alan Page for Notre Dame. Unfortunately for the Irish, star running back Nick Eddy hurt his knee getting off the train in East Lansing and quarterback Terry Hanratty got levelled by Smith and knocked out of the game in the first quarter. That left both teams, Jimmy Raye for Michigan State and Coley O'Brien for Notre Dame with quarterbacks who were not exactly household names, even in their own households.

The only reason I was assigned to the game was that our columnist, Dave Condon, had gone to cover a Muhammad Ali fight in Houston and had not been heard from since. I was sitting on the rim of the copy desk early that week when sports editor George Strickler came out of his office to tell me to pack a suitcase and get to East Lansing right away. There were daily press conferences with Spartans' coach Duffy Daugherty, none of which produced anything of substance, but we did get treated to Daugherty's singing a number called, "My Sister's a Mule in the Mines." I thought my coverage of the Michigan State locker room was as unremarkable as the game (the big story was in the Notre Dame locker room where Parseghian was trying to explain his decision), but somebody must have liked it, because when I got back to the office on Monday morning Strickler called me into his office and told me the Tribune was breaking longstanding tradition and adding a second sports column, which I was going to write.

Another 1 vs. 2 game involving the Irish came two years later, but it was early in the season and ended up of little significance. The thing I remember most about it was a quote from Jack Mollenkopf, the Purdue coach whose Boilermakers were ranked No. 1 to Notre Dame's No. 2. It came at the Friday night press party (an event that was a staple at almost every school at that time, sometimes called a smoker and attended by the coaches of both schools). I was sitting at a table with Mollenkopf and a couple of other writers, when the Purdue coach, who was one of my alltime favorite people, remarked: "I don't know why everyone's so excited about this game. We're going to beat them tomorrow and they're going to end up ranked higher than us." What a prophet! Purdue soundly whipped the Irish, 37-22, but ended the season with an 8-2 record and a No. 10 ranking. Notre Dame, with its 7-2-1 record, was ranked No. 5.

The next year, 1969, produced my personal favorite championship game, The Shootout in the Hills between Texas (1) and Arkansas (2). The game was played in Fayetteville, Ark., and the warmth and hospitality of the townspeople in itself would have made it memorable. The Razorbacks were coached by Frank Broyles and I arrived on site early in the week harboring less than positive thoughts about Broyles, who had coached Missouri for one year after Don Faurot retired, before bolting for Arkansas. Like most Missouri grads I felt a little snubbed. But Broyles quickly won me over.

The night of my arrival, the Southwest Conference football writers held a dinner in Broyles' honor to which I was invited. There were perhaps a dozen of us at the table, including Broyles, and it didn't take long to discover why the writers felt so highly of Broyles that they would take him to dinner. But the clincher came on Friday, the day before the game at the coach's final press conference. After fielding two or three questions about Texas' new-fangled wishbone offense, Broyles held up a hand and said," wait a minute.'' He then left the interview room and came back a few moments later with two cans of film. He then proceeded to show us the Longhorns in wishbone action while explaining the intricacies of the triple option formation.

The game lived up to its billing. With President Nixon in attendance (it was the second time that year I got to meet the President, the first time being at the Kentucky Derby), Texas came back from a 14-0 fourth quarter deficit for a 15-14 victory. The one play I still rember from that game came on fourth and three at the Texas 43 with the Longhorns still trailing 14-8. Although a punt seemed in order, and Texas almost never passed out of the wishbone, Coach Darrell Royal called for a pass and quarterback James Street delivered a 44-yard strike to tight end Randy Peschel, who caught the ball despite double coverage. The Longhorns scored two plays later and, with President Nixon leading the way, were declared national champions. Great game. Great people.

In 1971 I covered two 1-2 games, the first memorable, the second not. On Thanksgiving week-end Nebraska and Oklahoma played what was not only that year's Game of the Century, but also a game for the ages. It was my first trip to Norman since my student days when I covered Missouri football in my final semester. Oklahoma had the No. 1 offense in the country and Nebraska the No. 1 defense. But the Cornhuskers also had the electric Johnny Rodgers, whose 72-yard punt return was a big play in Nebraska's 35-31 victory.

By the time Nebraska played Alabama in the Orange bowl, the Crimson Tide had moved up to No.2. But there was little drama to this game. The Cornhuskers rolled the Tide halfway back to Tuscaloosa in a 38-6 runaway. Years after that tidal wave, the Hurricanes of Miami were involved in consecutive 1-2 games while I was covering college football on a fulltime basis. In both cases the No. 2 team won to claim the national championship. First, Penn State stifled Miami's Vinny Testaverde in a 14-10 Fiesta bowl upset to end the 1986 season. A year later, the Hurricanes, taking advantage of their home field in the Orange bowl, upended top-ranked Oklahoma 20-14.

The two coaches in that game were Jimmy Johnson for Miami and Barry Switzer for Oklahoma. Both would go on to win a Super bowl with the Dallas Cowboys. Although I had little personal dealing with Switzer, I always liked him. He was easy to deal with. If you wanted to talk to an Oklahoma player, all you had to do was ask. I remember once arriving in Norman in midweek for a big game and meeting Switzer in his office. The only other writer there was the AP national football writer, Hershel Nissenson, who asked Switzer, "What time is practice?" "What time do you want it," responded Switzer.