[NU Sports] Well, I hope you're right Alan! :)

[Arthur Miller]

Ohio State was guaranteed a spot because they finished in the Top 4 of the
BCS rankings; any team who does so is guaranteed a spot.  ND is guaranteed a
spot because they finished in the Top 6; only ND gets such consideration.
As a result, there were no at-large teams in the BCS this year.

Unfair?  Perhaps, but it's simply due to ND's clout.  If the BCS had
declined to give ND preferential treatment, the Irish could have struck
their own, separate bowl deals.  The fact of the matter is that the Irish
have a lot of fans.  Fans = $$$.  And yes, some of that BCS $$$ eventually
makes its way to NU.



-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Michael Vance
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 10:04 PM
To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Well, I hope you're right Alan! :)

[...]
Years like this really underscore the preferential treatment that ND 
gets.  There is a rule about BCS schools in the top 6 automatically getting 
a BCS bowl bid, but I believe (and I may be wrong) that ND gets special 
treatment in this rule.  If I'm correct, the bowls didn't have a choice of 
which two schools out of the three top-6 non-champion teams (dOSU, Oregon, 
ND) to take.  Even though they were the lowest-ranked of the three, I think 
that ND got it automatically and it was a matter of which team between dOSU 
and Oregon would fill the remaining spot.