THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995               TAG: 9512030325
SECTION: SPORTS                   PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   37 lines

BOWL PICTURE FALLS INTO FOCUS IT'LL BE FLORIDA, NEBRASKA FOR NATIONAL TITLE VIRGINIA TECH COULD PLAY IRISH IN THE ORANGE BOWL

Finally, everybody is into the pool.

Florida beat Arkansas 34-3 Saturday in the Southeastern Conference championship game in Atlanta, and Texas topped Texas A&M 16-6 to claim the Southwest Conference title.

Those were the final dominoes to fall for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls to determine who would play in their games. Florida and Texas join Virginia Tech (Big East), Nebraska (Big Eight), Florida State (ACC) and Notre Dame to form the Bowl Alliance Conference Champions Pool. Notre Dame qualified for an at-large spot by finishing the season ranked in the top 10.

Today at 5:30 p.m. on CBS, the bowls will announce their selections.

The Bowl Alliance was formed to enhance bowl matchups and, ideally, create a national championship game. With the help of Michigan's victory over Ohio State last week, that has happened this year.

The Fiesta bowl will pit top-ranked and undefeated Nebraska against No. 2 and undefeated Florida with the title on the line Jan. 2 in Tempe, Ariz.

After that, the only certainty seems to be the Orange Bowl's selection of Notre Dame with the third pick.

``That's the only thing over the weeks I haven't heard much wavering on,'' Sugar Bowl executive director Troy Mathieu said.

Here's a prediction on how it could pan out after the Fiesta selects the first two teams: Orange takes Notre Dame, Sugar selects Florida State, Orange picks Virginia Tech, Sugar gets Texas. by CNB