Everywhere You Turn, More Tarnish on Dome

Go ahead, America, have a whack.

Notre Dame deserves it.

Never has a school been so eager for an opening kickoff against an opponent, Michigan, that is still spit-polishing its national championship trophy.

The Irish’s spring and summer rated only slightly worse than President Clinton’s:

* Kevin Pendergast, a former Notre Dame kicker, was implicated in a betting scandal involving Northwestern basketball.

* Joe Moore, a former offensive line coach fired after Bob Davie replaced Lou Holtz in 1996, won an age discrimination lawsuit against the university in a trial that revealed such secrets as 1) Holtz physically attacking an assistant coach; 2) Davie and Moore questioning Holtz’s mental stability; 3) Moore catching a group of players watching cheerleaders having sex during a 1996 game in Ireland.

* In August, the NCAA found Notre Dame guilty of two violations involving past and present players who accepted gifts and trips from Kimberly Dunbar, who pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges.

The good news is the five current players involved have retained their eligibility for Saturday’s home opener against Michigan.

* And, just this week, former team captain Demetrius DuBose was arrested after a nightclub altercation and charged with, among other things, battery by bodily waste.

On the field, Notre Dame is coming off a 7-6 season and has not won a national title in 10 years. Ratings for the Irish’s exclusive deal with NBC have fallen three consecutive years. The Irish have not been ranked No. 1 since 1993 and have had one first-round draft pick since 1994.

Notre Dame opens the season against four schools it lost to in 1997--Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Stanford--and then plays at highly ranked Arizona State on Oct. 10.

“This is Christmas for those who want to take a shot,” Notre Dame Athletic Director Michael Wadsworth said.

No plans yet to rename the school Notre Shame.

Embarrassing?

“Absolutely,” Wadsworth said. “You want to apologize to people who are alumni, faithful supporters that feel the hurt of this embarrassment because of the great pride and loyalty they have toward the school.”

Scandals are nothing new on college campuses, but Notre Dame has always been held by many to a higher standard. It is a university that has been spin-doctored by Hollywood since the days of Knute Rockne, mythologized as an athletic safe haven supported by the pillars of religion and football.

The moral is that Notre Dame is no better or worse than many other football institutions of higher learning. Notre Dame has strengths and weaknesses. It is run by men and women, some of whose motives are not holy.

It is a university of great football tradition, yes, having won 11 national titles while producing seven Heisman Trophy winners and 77 first-team All-Americas.

But anyone who thinks that a school is immune to wrongdoing because of its religious bent need only be reminded that some of the biggest scandals in college football history have involved Southern Methodist University--the only school to receive the NCAA’s “death penalty” for football--and Boston College, a Catholic university that was stung by a betting scandal.

As much as Notre Dame is a religious school, it is also a conglomerate.

“Issues will continue to arise when you have that many people involved,” Wadsworth said.

Notre Dame football faces its biggest crossroad since the last days of Gerry Faust.

Davie, the second-year coach, recruited a top-five freshman class, but things in South Bend may get worse before they get better.

We’ll know more after Saturday’s date with the Wolverines.

“God only knows how we’ll make out in those first five games,” Wadsworth said. “At the same time, there are reasons to feel better about the football program. Whether we’ll be in better shape in terms of record, I don’t know.”

Add Irish: Wadsworth said the school and Big Ten executives have had an “excellent exchange” of information pertaining to Notre Dame possibly joining the Big Ten.

Wadsworth claims the issue of Notre Dame’s exclusive television contract is not a deal breaker. The question, Wadsworth says, is whether the school wants to join a conference after 100 years of tremendous success as a football independent.

Another hang-up is Notre Dame’s current affiliation with the Big East in all sports other than football.

Wadsworth said Notre Dame will probably decide on the Big Ten sometime early next year.

OK, CLASS, PENCILS READY?

The new bowl championship series can be confusing, so we’ll attack this bit by bit.

Q: When the Rose Bowl plays host to the national title game in 2002, where do the Pacific 10 and Big Ten champions go?

A: Assuming neither conference has the No. 1 or No. 2 team that year, the Pac-10 champion has been contracted to play in the Fiesta Bowl. The Big Ten champion as of yet has no bowl tie-in.

Q: What happens if UCLA and Arizona State finish 11-0 this season?

A: Assuming UCLA is ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the new formula, and Arizona State is not, UCLA has to go to the Fiesta Bowl and play in the title game. However, the Rose Bowl would not be bound to take Arizona State.

If UCLA is No. 1, the Rose Bowl gets the first pick in the pool that would include any independent, including a bowl-eligible Notre Dame, or any second-place conference team. The Rose Bowl could also take any conference champion this year with the exception of the Southeastern’s, which is bound to the Sugar Bowl. The Orange Bowl picks either the champion of the Atlantic Coast or Big East conference. The Rose Bowl could take the school the Orange Bowl does not.

If the Rose Bowl loses the No. 2-ranked team to the Fiesta Bowl, it gets the second pick in the pool.

Q: What happens if UCLA and Arizona State, which don’t play each other this year, end up with the same records but neither is ranked first or second?

A: UCLA goes to the Rose Bowl because Arizona State more recently played in the game.

Q: What about Notre Dame?

A: A staunch independent that has never had a bowl tie-in, Notre Dame has upgraded its position in the new system. The Irish automatically qualify for a bowl championship series game (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta) if they have nine wins or finish in the top 10 of the new bowl formula.

If Notre Dame doesn’t earn an upper-tier bowl bid, it has negotiated ties with the Big East for berths in either the Gator or Insight.com (formerly Copper) bowl.

THEY NEED A STOP SIGN

Whoa there, Kentucky Wildcats. You made some entertaining strides in 1997 under first-year Coach Hal Mumme, whose wide-open offense set 15 Southeastern Conference records.

But it might be a tad early to have renamed a street on campus “Hal Mumme Pass.”

Kentucky finished the year 5-6. That’s a whopping one more victory than ousted coach Bill Curry posted in 1996.

Add Mumme: He says he still gets criticized by some cloud-of-dust SEC traditionalists for contributing to the ruination of a once-proud running conference.

Mumme’s Wildcats were anything but conventional last year, attempting nearly as many fourth-down conversions (38) as punts (39).

Retorts Mumme, a Texas native, of the old SEC mentality: “This is the reason the South lost the war: Let’s all form one mass formation and get killed by one cannon ball. I think it’s more fun to play the game this way. You have to adapt to society.”

There, that ought to endear Mumme to the good ol’ boys.

TWO-MINUTE DRILL

* Mouths are still agape in Nebraska after the most disturbing 29-point victory in Cornhusker history. Let’s put Louisiana Tech receiver Troy Edwards’ NCAA-record 405 yards in context. In Nebraska’s 13 victories last season, only Colorado amassed more total yards, 455, against the Cornhusker defense than Edwards accounted for by himself.

Edwards’ 21 receptions fell three short of tying the NCAA single-game record of 24 held by a former Mississippi Valley State receiver named Jerry Rice.

* Michigan plays one of the toughest schedules in the country. Kansas State plays one of the weakest. If Michigan finishes the regular season 11-1 and Kansas State finishes 11-0, will the strength of schedule component in the new bowl championship series formula be enough to give the nod to Michigan?

“I think that will be the controversial part of the system,” Michigan Coach Lloyd Carr says.

* Miami, back to a full allotment of scholarships after NCAA probation, is being asked to save the struggling Big East, which was 0-4 in bowl games and dragged down by conference ankle weights Rutgers and Temple. But how does it look for Miami to have dodged a Sept. 12 invitation to play independent Central Florida? It’s no secret Central Florida is campaigning to join the Big East and no secret Miami is trying to block it.

* Ohio State Coach John Cooper wins this week’s honesty award. When asked about Saturday’s tough road opener against West Virginia, Cooper remarked, “Obviously, we’d rather be playing a lesser opponent at home.”