Selection Systems Are Second-Rate, Not the Irish

No matter how you slice it, Notre Dame, not Miami, deserves to be the No. 1 team in college football. This thing stinks--and we hope Catholic priests will forgive the imagery--to high heaven.

Doesn’t matter how you feel about Notre Dame’s goody-goody image or Miami’s baddy-baddy image. The Fighting Irish have every reason to be fighting mad. They got a raw deal in both the final Associated Press and United Press International rankings released Tuesday.

Nobody had a better record than Notre Dame.

Nobody played a tougher schedule than Notre Dame.

Nobody defeated the only other team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation, Colorado, except Notre Dame.

Notre Dame was the defending national champion, and should keep its crown until being clearly dethroned.

Notre Dame has won 24 of its last 25 games, but is being penalized for losing to the next-best team in college football, Miami, on that team’s home field.

If Miami had not lost a game, then fine, no argument, make the Hurricanes the national champions. We have no gripe with their reputation. We do have a gripe with their qualifications.

This Miami squad had one loss, same as Notre Dame. The team Miami lost to, Florida State--which was ranked second, ahead of Notre Dame in the final UPI poll--lost to two other teams, one of them Southern Mississippi.

And yet, two sportswriters voted Florida State No. 1 in the final AP poll and seven coaches cast first-place votes for the Seminoles in the UPI poll.

Possibly the writers were the same two guys who were going around the Orange Bowl press box Monday night claiming that Florida State was obviously “playing the best football right now.”

Those guys must have been smoking their newspapers.

Florida State beats Nebraska, which lost to Colorado, which lost to Notre Dame--but Florida State is “playing the best football right now.” Give me a break.

Hey, if you want to vote for who’s “playing the best football right now,” let’s all vote for UCLA, which in its last game played an excellent tie against the Rose Bowl champion.

Or, if you want to take this thing seriously, who was playing better football than Auburn at season’s end? Did Miami look any more impressive against Alabama than Auburn did? Was it Auburn’s fault that it wasn’t invited to the Sugar Bowl?

This whole poll business is nonsense. Nonsense! Illinois ends up ranked behind USC. Try to explain why. Illinois had a better record than USC. Illinois beat USC, on USC’s field, yet. Illinois’ only losses were to Colorado and Michigan. USC was tied by UCLA, a 3-7 team.

Colorado could have cleared up the whole mess by beating Notre Dame, because nobody would have had the nerve to vote against the nation’s only unbeaten team. The Buffaloes, however, became extinct.

That left the national championship to belong to either Notre Dame or Miami, and just look at what they did on New Year’s night.

Notre Dame knocked off the nation’s only undefeated, top-ranked team, and did so by 15 points. Miami played an Alabama team that had just been hammered by Auburn in its previous game, and won by eight.

Yet, who gets voted No. 1? Miami!

Miami, my left foot.

Notre Dame beat the nation’s No. 1 team, beat both Rose Bowl teams, beat the Aloha Bowl champion, beat the Holiday Bowl champion. Miami’s schedule paled in comparison.

Notre Dame beat three teams ranked in the final top 10--Colorado, Michigan and USC. Miami beat one--Notre Dame.

If Notre Dame can play the kind of schedule it plays, lose once in 25 games and be punished for it, then why bother scheduling anybody decent ever again? Just go out, cream 11 cream puffs and dare somebody to say that your schedule was soft.

Notre Dame actively sought the toughest competition it could find, even for its bowl game.

Notre Dame even played an extra game this season. It didn’t have to. It offered to leave death-penalized SMU off its original 11-game schedule and it added a 12th opponent. Notre Dame took risks.

Look, there are a lot of people who don’t like Notre Dame for some reason. Maybe it’s that holier-than-thou attitude. Maybe it’s the school’s prominence, or some of the players’ behavior.

All we know is that Miami got more first-place votes in the polls, 39-19 in the AP’s, 36-6 in UPI’s.

They were the sorriest final scores of the season.