I was tempted to begin this analysis last weekend after the Air Force game, but promised that I would wait until the Irish emerged victorious from Tallahassee before going crazy with the Fiesta Bowl speculation. While 1993 should give us all evidence that looking ahead can be dangerous (see Boston College, 41-39), I am confident that the team ND is fielding this season has been through too much to let the opportunity slip away on their home turf to a very average Big East school.

So as a follow up to my best-selling effort from November 1998 "How this 8-1, 12th ranked Notre Dame Team Can Still Mathematically Win the National Championship", I give you my first edition of the "2002 Notre Dame-BCS Guide to Watching College Football". This will be updated weekly and should always, without exception, be within an arm's reach beginning with the first college game of the weekend.

As we all know, the Bowl Championship Series is a much-maligned method of determining the participants in the collegiate national championship game. It factors in everything from the human polls to computers to strength of schedule. In a complicated system like this, literally every game of the weekend has some sort of varying impact (from the direct impact of a loss by a team in front of or near Notre Dame in the BCS standings to the very miniscule impact of an opponent's opponent of a BCS contender winning or losing). So with roughly 50 college football games involving Division 1-A teams being played every weekend, the service I want to provide for you, my dear friends, is to give you a quick reference guide as to who to root for in each game based on the impact it will have on Notre Dame's chances of playing in Tempe for the national championship on January 3.

The nice thing about the system this year is that margin of victory is not a factor, so all that we need to be concerned with is "Who should I root for to win and who should I root for to lose?" This document will answer that question for you for every game this weekend.

I have generated this document making the following assumptions:

(1) With 8 undefeated 1-A teams still remaining, including the top 6 teams in the nation, Notre Dame will almost certainly have to go undefeated to make it to the Fiesta Bowl. On top of that, of the 8 undefeated teams, it is safe to say that Bowling Green has no shot of even penetrating the Top 10, let alone pass Notre Dame. It also safe to assume that there is no way an undefeated N.C. State passes an undefeated Notre Dame. (Believe it or not, the Irish should be rooting FOR N.C. State this weekend against a Georgia Tech team that shows up later this season on BCS adversary Georgia's schedule.)

Thus, the analysis focuses on comparing Notre Dame's situation to the following five (5) teams: Oklahoma, Miami (FL), Virigina Tech, Georgia, and Ohio State. Barring a wild November, the two Fiesta Bowl participants are going to come from that pool of teams and the Irish. For the purposes of this exercise, call these legit Fiesta Bowl contenders the "Pool of Six" - the only teams worthy of worrying about.

(2) I have broken the games for the weekend down in terms of impact. The games are broken down into the following Tiers:

GROUND ZERO - Notre Dame vs Boston College. If the Irish don't win, nothing else matters in terms of the Fiesta Bowl.

TIER ONE (Major impact) - Games involving the other teams in the "Pool of Six". A loss by any of these teams virtually eliminates that team from the Fiesta Bowl conversation, and certainly eliminates an undefeated Notre Dame team from having to worry about finishing behind them in the BCS standings.

TIER TWO (Semi-major impact) - Games involving teams that appear on the schedules of the "Pool of Six". Pretty simple - Notre Dame opponents from this year's schedule winning is a good thing, opponents of the other "Pool of Six" teams losing is a good thing as well. (Note: In the one case of two ND opponents playing each other - Michigan vs Michigan State - I opted for Michigan since, if they can return to the BCS Top 10, ND will get a bonus for the Michigan win as "quality win".)

TIER THREE (minor impact) - Games involving the opponents of teams appearing on the schedules of the "Pool of Six". This is the "opponents' opponents" element, which counts for 1/3 of the strength of schedule quartile of the BCS formula and counts to varying degrees in the seven computer polls. When I said before that EVERY game involving a Division 1-A team has an impact, I wasn't kidding. EVERY game on the schedule involves teams that are, at the very least, the opponent of a few opponents of "Pool of Six" schools. Again, this element has a minimal quantitative impact, but as last season shows, a championship game slot can be decided by literally a tenth of a point. So it does matter.

(3) There are a few games that fit both the TIER TWO and TIER THREE category. Some of these are occasions where a "Pool of Six" team has played both teams involved, i.e. a conference game (Illinois v Penn State, for example, both are on Ohio State's schedule, thus nullifying each other's TIER TWO impact on Ohio State.). When the TIER TWO aspect of the game was a wash, the TIER THREE impact decided the winner.

In nearly every other case of a game being in both categories, when in doubt, I chose the team that had the greater TIER TWO impact since that more directly impacts strength of schedule. (Note: The only game of the weekend where I chose a team having a bigger TIER THREE impact was Western Michigan vs Ball State. While Western Michigan qualified as a TIER TWO team, having lost to Va Tech, they also played two ND opponents (Michigan and Purdue) and Ball State played five opponents of other "Pool of Six" schools. Western Michigan was not the opponent's opponent of any "Pool of Six" school this season. So in plain English, while a Western Michigan loss would have a small negative hit on Va Tech's strength of schedule, a Western Michigan win would have two very small positive hits on ND's and five very small negative hits on other "Pool of Six" teams. I know, clear as mud, tell me about it.)

Also, there was one case of a game - Houston v Memphis - where the impact was literally the exact same on the "Pool of Six", where both teams played the exact same number of opponents of "Pool of Six" schools (three) and that number was evenly distributed over the same three schools (Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma). So in terms of the "Pool of Six" it was a toss up; I went ahead and said to take Memphis since Houston played #7 Texas who is the closest one loss team to muddying up the works, and Houston losing would have a negative TIER TWO effect, if you will, on the Longhorns.

(4) It should be self-explanatory, but just in case - root for the team in CAPS. And unless otherwise noted, the game is a Saturday 11/2 game.

I hope all of you find this information helpful. That is what I am here to do - make your college football ticker/scoreboard watching a fun, productive, informed experience. Print it and keep it with you at all times. Those of you going to sports bars this weekend can now scan all 12 TV's at the joint with a rooting interest. Those of you who will be in Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday can confuse everyone around you when you go ballistic at the announcement of "Final Score in Fayetteville - it was Troy State 35, Arkansas 31".....WOO HOO!!!!!

And please note that if I exerted anything close to the level of effort while in school that I did on this analysis, then you would all be working for me. But alas, I needed my beauty sleep.

Go Irish!

Sean Pendergast, Class of 1991

GROUND ZERO - Boston College at NOTRE DAME, 2:30 PM ET

TIER ONE -

Miami at RUTGERS, 12:00 PM ET
COLORADO at Oklahoma, TBA
PITTSBURGH at Virginia Tech, 7:00 PM ET
MINNESOTA at Ohio State, TBA
FLORIDA at Georgia, 7:45 PM ET

TIER TWO -

Thursday, October 31
Colorado State at AIR FORCE, 7:35 PM ET

Texas at NEBRASKA, TBA
Georgia Tech at N.C. STATE, TBA
FLORIDA STATE at Wake Forest, TBA
FLORIDA ATLANTIC at Connecticut, 12:00 PM ET
Clemson at DUKE, 12:00 PM ET
Michigan State at MICHIGAN, 12:05 PM ET
MARYLAND at North Carolina, 1:30 PM ET
BOWLING GREEN at Kent State, 2:00 PM ET
Alabama at VANDERBILT, 2:00 PM ET
BAYLOR at Texas Tech, 2:00 PM ET
Wisconsin at IOWA, 2:05 PM ET
Kentucky at MISSISSIPPI ST., 2:30 PM ET
RICE at Tulsa, 3:00 PM ET
Marshall at AKRON, 3:30 PM ET
STANFORD at Oregon, 3:30 PM ET
ARIZONA STATE at Washington St, 5:00 PM ET
Tennessee at SOUTH CAROLINA, 7:00 PM ET
BOISE STATE at UT-El Paso, 9:05 PM ET San Jose State at HAWAII, 11:05 PM ET

TIER THREE -

Wednesday, October 30
Southern Miss at TCU, 7:30 PM ET

Illinois at PENN STATE, TBA
West Virginia at TEMPLE, 12:00 PM ET
Texas A&M at OKLAHOMA STATE, 12:30 PM ET
Indiana at NORTHWESTERN, 1:00 PM ET
Ohio at MIAMI (OHIO), 1:00 PM ET
WESTERN MICHIGAN at Ball State, 1:00 PM ET
Central Michigan at EASTERN MICH, 1:00 PM ET
KANSAS STATE at Kansas, 2:00 PM ET
Missouri at IOWA STATE, 2:00 PM ET
TROY STATE at Arkansas, 2:00 PM ET
AUBURN at Mississippi, 2:00 PM ET
Houston at MEMPHIS, 2:00 PM ET
S.D. STATE at Brigham Young, 3:00 PM ET
NEVADA at Southern Methodist, 3:00 PM ET
Ucla at WASHINGTON, 3:30 PM ET
Arizona at OREGON STATE, 4:00 PM ET
LOUISIANA MONROE at North Texas, 4:05 PM ET
IDAHO at La Lafayette, 5:00 PM ET
Syracuse at CENTRAL FLORIDA, 7:00 PM ET
Wyoming at UNLV, 7:00 PM ET