Hmmm, Let's See Now...
Nebraska should be No. 1 because it is undefeated....
Florida State should be No. 1 because it played the toughest schedule....
West Virginia should be No. 1 because it is undefeated....
Notre Dame should be No. 1 because it beat Florida State....
Auburn should be No. 1 because it is undefeated....
Nebraska should not be No. 1 because it played half of its games against teams from orphanages, dry-goods stores, pharmaceutical distributors and 4-H clubs....
Florida State should not be No. 1 because it lost the showcase game of the season against Notre Dame. Everyone said—and everyone includes Beano Cook, Burt Reynolds, Regis Philbin, Beavis, Butt-Head and John Wayne Bobbitt—that the winner of that game should be No. 1. If you lose the game that is supposed to determine No. 1, then it is impossible for you to be No. 1....
West Virginia should not be No. 1 because it played half of its games against teams from the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, Tenn., the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, the John Denver Fan Club in Aspen, Colo., and the Shady Acres Rest Home in Huntington, W. Va....
Notre Dame should not be No. 1 because it lost to Boston College, which earlier in the season lost to Northwestern. No team can ever be No. 1 if it loses to a team that lost to Northwestern. Those are the rules....
Auburn should not be No. 1 because it cheated and got caught....
Nebraska should be No. 1 because it has the most rabid fans in the nation, a longtime tradition of football excellence, an earnest coach in Tom Osborne and a classic, pound-it-out approach to the game....
Florida State should be No. 1 because it has quarterback Charlie Ward, the universal choice to win the Heisman Trophy, and the most exciting offense in college football....
West Virginia should be No. 1 because it has two bona fide No. 1 quarterbacks in Jake Kelchner and Darren Studstill, an underrated defense and a coach, Don Nehlen, who will cry if his team is not No. 1....
Notre Dame should be No. 1 because it has its own television network, more tradition than anyone else, a Golden Dome and a coach, Lou Holtz, who apparently is on a hunger strike. It is also the school that gave Rudy a chance....
Auburn should be No. 1 because everyone cheats. Cheating is a big part of college football, and getting caught should be no big deal....
Nebraska should not be No. 1 because it has played in a billion bowl games to determine who is No. 1 and has almost always lost, usually by healthy scores. A team cannot even consider being No. 1 if it has not won a bowl game since the Hoover Administration....
Florida State should not be No. 1 because it has a coach, Bobby Bowden, who never has been No. 1 at the end of the season; a mascot, a nickname and a cheer that are all politically incorrect; and a defense that is susceptible to a strong running game. History also is a factor. The only way Florida State should ever be No. 1 is if it plays Miami in a bowl and wins on a field goal as time expires....
West Virginia should not be No. 1 because the only other time the Mountaineers went 11-0 they were crushed by Notre Dame, 34-21 in the 1989 Fiesta Bowl....
Notre Dame should not be No. 1 because, well, it is the school that gave Rudy a chance....
Auburn should not be No. 1 because no one outside of the Southeast has ever seen Auburn play. Does it really have a team? Did it really win all of those games? If an Auburn team goes undefeated in the forest and no one is there, does anyone make a noise? Not really....
No one should be No. 1....
Everyone should be No. 1....
We should have a playoff....
We should flip a coin....
Al Gore should debate all of this with Ross Perot on Larry King Live, using pie charts and graphs. Don Nehlen should voice his concerns to Oprah. Lou Holtz should meet Susan Powter. Or maybe he has. The mascots should fight it out, Mountaineers and Cornhuskers and Tigers and Seminoles and leprechauns all in a cartoon jumble. The NCAA should step into the picture and use SAT scores or grade point averages as tiebreakers. Alex Trebek should decide. Or Janet Reno. Or Keith Jackson. Or Michael Jackson....
I, myself, like Notre Dame. One loss. An off day against Boston College. A great comeback that should have won the game. A BC field goal on the last play. Why isn't there more support for Notre Dame? Aren't Notre Dame's credentials better than Florida State's? Isn't Notre Dame's schedule stronger than the schedules of the undefeated teams? Wouldn't Notre Dame beat any of these teams in one game, winner take all? Notre Dame....
After all, it is the school that gave Rudy a chance.
PHOTO
DAMIAN STROHMEYER