Cheers, cheers for new Notre Dame

[EnviedOne]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mark from Miami was eager to engage each of the dozen or so Notre Dame fans who wandered into the hotel's sports bar in small groups after the Irish-Stanford football game Saturday night.

He was here for Sunday's Dolphins-Raiders game across the bay, he announced, and he'd watched on television as the Irish pulled out their 38-31 victory over the gritty but outmanned Cardinal. Mark was impressed.

Though he had a smooth, round face and the small, soft hands of, say, a bookseller, Mark had played some cornerback in his day, he revealed. So he knew passers, and he was dreamily envisioning Brady Quinn in a Miami uniform instead of current starter Gus Frerotte, who doesn't have the arm, the touch or the vision to get the Dolphins "to the next level," in Mark's words.

"Any chance Quinn will come out early?" he asked repeatedly, and the consensus among the ND cognoscenti was there was none.

Glumly, Mark went back to his beer and his friends.

The ND crowd went about savoring a terrific football game, one that had the feeling of found money, even though the Irish had been an 18-point favorite. With a $15 million BCS payday at stake, football-savvy members of the Notre Dame party had not taken Stanford lightly.

The Cardinal, 5-5 coming in, had an outside shot at a bowl bid, though a much lesser bowl bid, but any bowl would be nice for first-year coach Walt Harris. Stanford has a clever passing game, and the Irish still have a leaky secondary.

Most important, more than 200 Stanford football luminaries were on hand for the final game to be played at ancient Stanford Stadium, which because of them had always been one of college football's special places. The current Cardinal wanted to make a good impression, especially after stinking out the joint in the previous week's dispiriting loss to archrival Cal.

Stanford did, even in losing. The Cardinal played its collective heart out. Despite accumulating 663 yards of offense and averaging 7.5 yards per play, Notre Dame needed all the last-minute magic Quinn and company could muster. It made for good football and great theater … and a 9-2 season. Who'd have thought?

Still, the reaction among Irish faithful in this particular pub was rather muted—no exuberant high-fives, certainly no gloating. They sensed they were in enemy territory—San Francisco's Bay Area is solid Pac-10 country, with two teams located here—and they realize not everyone is enthralled by the prospect of Notre Dame in a BCS game, this year or any year.

There's the matter of the schedule, which turned out to be a little less daunting than most everybody figured. Pitt and Purdue were non-entities, Michigan State won once after beating the Irish, Tennessee disappointed hugely, Syracuse and Washington were terrible, and if you're Notre Dame, you'd better beat BYU and Navy.

None of that is Notre Dame's fault; schedules are drawn up years in advance. The rub is the Irish may well advance at the expense of a one-loss Oregon team, an Oregon team whose only loss was to mighty USC.

Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen was lobbying Fiesta Bowl officials on Oregon's behalf in the Stanford press box Saturday night. Fundraising, or "expanding the brand," is part of any commissioner's job, and Hansen's conference can use another share of that BCS swag, even if Nike's Phil Knight is a deep-pocketed and generous Oregon alum.

So if Oregon goes, does Ohio State stay home? The Buckeyes' only losses were to Texas and Penn State.

Three quality teams for two spots. The beauty of the BCS.

Notre Dame will be one of them, because star power sells. Ask Phil Knight.

Source: Chicago Tribune