![]() The reality is that any ounce of Irish success on the gridiron gets bowl organizers’ mouths frothing. I’m not going to dispute the overrated part. Mark May, Michael Wilbon, Jason Whitlock, John Saunders, Jay Mariotti, any and all residents of the greater Ann Arbor area-they collude to weave this vast hypocritical tapestry that paints Notre Dame football as overrated and coddled by the BCS. This lone “Notre Dame clause” is usually what gets all the Irish haters’ panties in a bunch. Notre Dame will be guaranteed one of the at-large slots in a BCS bowl if it is ranked No. What’s that? You’re talking about the larger bowl picture? About Notre Dame’s preferential treatment when it comes to the BCS Bowls? Okay then, I’ll bite on that conspiratorial load of bull as well. Then again, I could just point to the Hawaii Bowl box score and ask if anyone still thinks Notre Dame didn’t deserve to be in that game. I could point out that Notre Dame’s appearance in this season’s Hawaii Bowl garnered a 104% jump in television ratings and a 46% jump in attendance-the largest year-to-year increase of any 2008-09 post-season bowl and a Nielsen share and attendance figure exceeding this year’s ACC Championship game. I could point out that this reality merits bowl organizers think about the economics of their bowl picks and thus they don’t take the Notre Dame brand lightly. ![]() I could point out to the armchair pundits that the college football post-season is little more than one game that matters plus 33 exhibition games. One of the favorite semi-annual topics of conversation in the college football world is whether or not Notre Dame “deserves” its bowl bid. And when I get to thinking, that’s never a good thing. As I watched Ohio State lose to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl, putting the finishing touches on the Big Ten’s current six-game BCS Bowl losing streak, I got to thinking.
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