anti-ND blather (was Re: [NU Sports] Sugar Bowl ...)

[NEONRye at aol.com]

Art, 
 
While you are correct that bowl games are "about money", that explanation  
doesn't make it right.  When NU was screwed out of the Outback Bowl in  2000, I 
think it was, and sent instead to the Alamo Bowl to get eviscerated by  
Nebraska, everyone lost--the Wildcats and their fans (us); fans of well-balanced  
college football post-season games; and the credibility that comes when one gets 
 what one earns--on the field.  We belonged in Tampa that year, not San  
Antonio, but because we didn't have the hype and the rep and the "traveling  
circus" of fans, we were sent indoors to get slaughtered by the Huskier  Huskers.   
 Notre Dame basically "buys" their way into the BCS as  it stands now.  If 
you feel that such a system is just and in the interest  of the game of College 
FB, then you can continue to support such an unlevel  playing field.  As for 
me (and apparently Stephen), I think the system  stinks.  The only redeeming 
moments are when the Boise States of the world  upset the financial "applecart" 
for the Powers such as Oklahoma and their  sycophantic supporters at the BCS 
and on the Bowl Committees.  I cast my  vote for parity and for a rising up of 
the "excluded".  The most compelling  story in last year's NCAA Hoops Tourney 
was George Mason (not Florida), and the  most compelling stories this College F
B season are Boise State, Wake Forest and  Rutgers (3 schools that we 'Cat 
fans should identify with, as we know what it is  like to wear "Cinderalla's 
shoe").  Notre Dame's "shortcut" into BCS $$ and  glory (although I am not sure 
how much glory there is in continual bowl defeats)  should be eliminated once 
and for all.   They need to make it the  "old-fashioned way", as the Smith & 
Barney commercial put it--they need to  "earn" their invitation, not inherit it 
every year.
 
Paul Levinson