Bob West
The Port Arthur News
PORT ARTHUR —
Editor’s note: The following column from the Best of West collection was originally published in the Port Arthur News on Jan. 4, 1989.
Based on the final poll, which unfortunately is the way college
football determines its national champion — make that mythical national
champion — Notre Dame reigns today as No. 1. Certainly no surprise
there.
We all knew the Fighting Irish would end up on top from the day they
designated overrated, overmatched West Virginia as their bowl-day patsy.
The outcome of the Fiesta Bowl offered about as much suspense as a foot
race between Florence Griffith-Joyner and Tommy Lasorda.
What the final polls don't tell us is whether Notre Dame is actually
the nation's best team. That's a subject even more open to debate now
than it was before the bowls.
Miami strengthened its case by literally stuffing a Nebraska team
that's a legitimate football power. The Cornhuskers lose from time to
time, but they never get overwhelmed like they did Monday night.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, basically proved one thing. Namely that
those of us who've been saying all along West Virginia was out of its
league were right. Truth is, the Mountaineers didn't have enough quality
athletes to be on the field with a Notre Dame, a Miami or half dozen
other top 10 teams.
So who is really better -- Notre Dame or Miami? Actually, I'm not
sure, and I don't think anybody who'll give an honest answer is either.
My thoughts, which have been well documented over the last couple of
months, are that Miami's the best. But I wouldn't bet my next paycheck
they'd beat Notre Dame if the two played again.
And there's the rub. Notre Dame and Miami are clearly the two best
teams in college football. The difference between the two teams on Oct.
15 was one point at South Bend. Since then both have been near
invincible. They should have played again in the Fiesta Bowl.
What Notre Dame did by dodging Miami was deprive football fans
everywhere of a game that would have been the most talked about in the
history of the collegiate game. A Notre Dame-Miami Fiesta Bowl would
have made the Super Bowl, any Super Bowl, pale by comparison.
Spare me the rhetoric about rematches not being desirable, or about
the Fiesta Bowl preferring to have West Virginia. The Fiesta Bowl wanted
whatever Notre Dame wanted.
If Lou Holtz had said he wanted to play
Lamar, the Cardinals would have been the first 3-8 team in history to
play in a major bowl.
Rematches happen all the time. Both NFL conference championship
games this Sunday are rematches. Oklahoma's basketball team lost the
NCAA championship game to Kansas last year, after defeating the Jayhawks
twice in the regular season.
The bottom line is that Holtz knew he was fortunate to edge Miami in
October, knew the Hurricanes wouldn't turn the ball over seven times if
they played again, knew that Notre Dame, because it's Notre Dame, could
get away with playing a lesser foe. And that's exactly what he did.
It's also why I stuck to my guns about voting Miami No. 1 in the
final poll. I still believe a true champion refuses to take the easy way
out, doesn't duck the best opponent available.
A true champion does what Miami coach Jimmy Johnson did at the end in South Bend. Knowing that a pretty much automatic kick would have resulted in a 31-31 tie, he opted to go for two and the victory. When the Hurricanes failed, he gave Holtz an escape route.
I'll always believe the Notre Dame coach feared he couldn't beat Miami again and knew he had a cinch with West Virginia.
Obviously, I'd have to had to back down if Miami had lost its bowl game to
Nebraska. But the Hurricanes beat a better team than West Virginia, and
did it at least as convincingly as Notre Dame.
So to change my vote now would be
hypocritical, would be to admit that arguments advanced before the bowls
weren't valid.
It would also be like trying to sell West Virginia as legitimate,
which brings up another sore subject.
What disappoints me most about all this is the media, the same media
who're always lobbying for a national playoff. By not speaking out, by
fawning over Notre Dame, by promoting Notre Dame-West Virginia as a
national championship game, the media helped perpetuate a hoax.
With a couple of notable exceptions, like author Dan Jenkins and New
York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, the national media failed to blow
the whistle on Holtz' little con game. Instead of questioning the
validity of West Virginia as a legitimate opponent, instead of pointing out
this was like a race between thoroughbreds and donkeys, the media sold
America a bill of goods.
The simple-minded rationale seemed to be that West Virginia deserved
to play for a national championship because it was 11-0. And so what if
the Mountaineers got there playing only one ranked ream, so what if
Florida State and Auburn at 10-1 were obviously better? Not to mention
Miami.
If nothing else, the one-sidedness of the Fiesta Bowl provides the
perfect argument to the fallacy of rating a team strictly by its record.
West Virginia was never in the game, was never a threat. It got blown
away physically on the line of scrimmage, which is always a telltale sign
when a team is in over its head.
Rather than a national championship game, what we got was a yawner,
a predictably boring example of what happens when two teams of decisively
different levels of talent and ability play in a big game. West Virginia
couldn't have seriously challenged Notre Dame, even if Jerry Glanville
had been coaching the Fighting Irish. Or Gerry Faust.
It could have been so much better, could have been a national
championship game people talk about years from now. Instead the Fiesta
Bowl was a game people won't be talking about this time next week.
Notre Dame is No. 1, but are the Fighting Irish the best?
Bob West is the Sports Editor of the Port Arthur News
