The wacky week in football

What a week for college football.
First, the absurdity of Nebraska's ascension to the Bowl Championship Series title game.
Then, George O'Leary's coming (and going) as Notre Dame's coach.
It isn't the Cornhuskers' fault they're playing Miami in the Rose Bowl on January 3. No one really expected them to turn down the invitation, after all.
Rather, it's the BCS system that's at fault; more specifically, the eight computer "geniuses" who have somehow worked their way into controlling the ratings.
Convoluted logic: For example, in the week following Tennessee's victory at Florida, the Sagarin rating came out with the Gators still ranked higher than the Volunteers. Both polls, meanwhile, correctly bumped Tennessee over Florida.
All the computer operators claim their ratings are better than the polls because there is supposedly no subjective rating. Yet, how can Sagarin and the others have a preseason rating, one that is posted before any games are played?
Obviously, there is a subjective nature to those ratings that ranks teams in the power conferences, like the Big Ten, higher than those in the so-called "mid-majors," like the Mid-American Conference.
(A Youngstown native, Mark Carden, who currently lives in Virginia, has developed a computer model that ranks teams based only the results of those games. He is in the process of calculating the top teams and we'll discuss those results in this space at a later time.)
The vast majority of college football fans and the media would like to see a playoff in I-A, but the chance of that happening falls somewhere between slim and none.
The reasons are simple: The coaches don't want a playoff, the bowl committees certainly don't want it, the NCAA probably doesn't want it and college presidents don't want it.
Coaches' view: The coaches have a loyalty of sorts to the traditional bowl setup for several reasons. They all want to have "bowl bid" on their resume every season, and also because of the NCAA's restrictive rules (in the coaches' minds, anyway) on practice earning a bowl bid gives those coaches an extra few weeks of practice they otherwise wouldn't get.
In a playoff system, only a handful of teams would get to continue practicing in December.
Mostly, though, it has to do with money. When all the groups involved can figure out a way to make a playoff profitable then it will happen.
There's a lot of blame that can be passed around in regards to the fiasco at Notre Dame.
Obviously, George O'Leary gets the bulk of it. Submitting misleading and false information on a resume will get anyone fired from any reputable firm.
Especially at an institution of higher learning which prides itself on its honor system.
He had to go: If O'Leary's misrepresentation had gone unchallenged, can you imagine the field day competing coaches and recruiters would have had?
Picture this scene in a high school senior's house:
Recruit: "I'm really leaning towards Notre Dame."
Coach: "Did you know Coach O'Leary lied on his resume? What else do you think he's lied about?"
The Notre Dame director of athletics, Kevin White, had no alternative but to swiftly and decisively ask for and accept O'Leary's resignation.
However, White also needs to accept some of the blame. Instead of being in a such a hurry to hire a "name" coach perhaps he would have been better advised to spend more time doing background checks.
XRob Todor is sports editor of The Vindicator. Write to him at todor@vindy.com.