As the weather in northern Indiana deteriorates from mildly intolerable to permanently gray and electron-stopping cold, talk of the bowl season begins to be heard from those tongues not currently affixed to flagpoles. True, after personally witnessing last year's loss to the Naval Academy, I readily admit that nothing is for certain. However, with upcoming contests against a now-weakened Navy team and the Greg Robinson death-watch formerly known as Syracuse, it appears almost certain that the Irish, even in the most pessimistic of scenarios, will be playing in college football's version of the NIT: a non-BCS bowl.

Unless something miraculous were to occur in Los Angeles, Notre Dame will most likely find itself in Jacksonville, Florida on January 1st, playing in the Gator Bowl against the ACC numero dos. This is so because Gator Bowl gets to choose between the Irish and the runner-up in the Big East conference, a spot currently occupied by Connecticut. I doubt that there would be much, if any, agony over that decision on the part of the selection committee.

WWL Big East blogger Brian Bennett has already started contemplating the hissy-fit to be thrown by conference fans upset that Notre Dame would be "stealing" one of "their" bowl bids. Bennett offers the justification for Notre Dame's inclusion in the Big East conference bowl tie-ins given by commissioner Mike Tranghese:

"What we've found is that, by bringing Notre Dame into the mix, that gave us an opportunity to make much better deals," Tranghese said. "When we made our last agreement, people didn't even know who was going to be in our league, because Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami had just left. If we didn't include Notre Dame in our contract, the games that we currently have don't exist. I know fans and sometimes our own coaches don't want to hear that, but it's true."

So the logic, then, is fairly simple: ND keeps its football independence while still getting a shot at a New Year's Day bowl during non-BCS years, and the Big East gets more prestigious bowl slots. It's an arrangement that has worked out pretty well for a conference that is only tenuously designated as BCS-grade. Notre Dame hasn't "stolen" a bowl from the Big East since 2002. And that fact was probably something the conference had in mind when it signed the arrangement. They figured that a traditional power like Notre Dame will be competing for a BCS bowl game most years, and thus Big East teams would only rarely be squeezed out of the Gator and other bowls.

Of course, simple logic eludes simple minds, as the comments following Bennett's post evince. A sampling:

"Notre Dame SUCKS!!!!! They should be treated like any other Independent. Work for their bids."

"You know what, It's damn time to either get Notre Dame in all the way or kick them out all the way. I fail to see what exactly the Big East has to gain from the current arrangement. It always seems that Notre Dame is on the winning side of the deal."

"Notre Dame needs to poop or get off the pot."

You can't argue with such people. You can only crown them as asshats, and pray that they don't poop on the carpet.


Big East

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