COMMENTARY : Notre Dame Gets Its Way Again

At the end of one of its most glorious seasons, college football again is the burlesque of major sports. There is something known as the Bowl Coalition and it was supposed to clean up the way bowl bids were handed out and back-room deals between bowls and schools were made. It also was supposed to reward the most deserving teams, maybe even settle a national championship on the field once in a while. It does none of that in its last year, before it gives way to next year’s miracle cure for college football, known as the Bowl Alliance. The coalition is a failure, run by greedy bums. Sometimes they look like the overflow from boxing.

As we approach another college football postseason that could be a waste of time, with sportswriters and coaches settling the national championship instead of Nebraska settling it against Penn State, it is reassuring that the tradition of greed holds. It is why a mediocre team such as Notre Dame gets a spot in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2 when it does not deserve to be anywhere near a major bowl game.

The best Notre Dame can do in any poll with its 6-4-1 record is No.26. Notre Dame really is lucky to be ranked that high. It does not stop it from going to the Fiesta Bowl and making $3.2 million to play Colorado. A few weeks ago, Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz said he would be embarrassed to go to a bowl game with his team’s record. Then the Fiesta Bowl waved all that money at him. You wave money at Notre Dame, it will offer to turn the fight song into rap.

Notre Dame is college football’s version of the 51st state. The Fighting Irish even have state-run television, NBC Sports in this case. NBC Sports televises Notre Dame home games. It also gets ready to televise the Fiesta Bowl for the last time. Next year, the game moves to CBS, so there is absolutely no love lost between NBC and the Fiesta Bowl, even if selecting Notre Dame looks like a cheap ratings grab. The bums from the Fiesta Bowl made the call here, but NBC never complains when it ends up in another sweaty embrace with the Irish.

Notre Dame makes a big score on its name, not on merit. This is a season when Holtz disgraced himself by running up the score against Navy, when his team’s most impressive victory might have come against that powerhouse from Air Force. Even at the end, the best Notre Dame could do against a USC team it had beaten 11 straight times was a tie. Now Holtz says his team was a few good kicks away from being 10-1. He sounds like the beery fan at the end of the bar with the leprechaun on his T-shirt.

“We deserve to go (to the Fiesta) off our play for the last four games,” Holtz says in the newspapers and on television.

All the other teams have to prove themselves over the season. The rules are different for Notre Dame teams, even those punched out by half its opponents. All the Irish have to do now is show signs of life at the finish. And here is what passes for a real big finish now in South Bend: wins over Navy and Air Force, a loss to Florida State, a tie against USC. Earlier in the season, Boston College pushed Notre Dame around the way it would push around a high-school team. “Manhandled” is the word Holtz himself used.

Boston College goes to the Aloha Bowl Christmas Day. Its opponent is Kansas State, which is one of the great stories of college football this season, a nowhere program that can now play with anybody. Kansas State’s only losses were to Nebraska (17-6) and Colorado (35-21), two of the best teams in the country. KSU was down one point to Nebraska with 11 minutes to go and was 21-21 in the fourth quarter with Colorado before blowing a terrific chance at the goal line to take the lead. Coach Bill Snyder’s players ended up with a record of 9-2 anyway, and are currently ranked No.8 in the coaches’ poll. They are so much more deserving of a major bowl than Notre Dame it is a joke.

Once Notre Dame decided to go to the Fiesta Bowl, it set off a chain reaction that knocked Kansas State out of either the Cotton Bowl or the Sun Bowl. So Kansas State gets $750,000 to play in the Aloha Bowl. But the Aloha doesn’t pay expenses, which means the school might lose money by the time it flies everybody to Hawaii. It sure doesn’t get $3 million from the Cotton Bowl, and that is a shame because this is a wonderful program all of a sudden under Snyder. But it is not a television program, the way Notre Dame is. It is not close to being the kind of draw Notre Dame is, because no one really is. Kansas State goes to the Aloha Bowl and, by the time the showcase games are played on Jan. 2, Snyder’s players will have gone home.

“We’re a product of a system that doesn’t seem to work very well,” Snyder said from his office in Manhattan, Kan. “I’m angry about the treatment we’ve gotten, my players are angry, our fans are angry. But our problem is a problem you run into a lot at this time of year: You don’t know where to vent your anger. There isn’t an individual or an institution who really seems to be in charge. You just hold it in.”