On that cold January night in 1994, we weren't playing for a national championship.

If you're going to change it to "in the discussion" or "in the hunt" then we were ranked in the top 5 as recently as 5 years ago and that's as "in the hunt" as we were in January of 1994 when we chose not to play FSU again. Six years ago, had we managed to stop USC on 4th and forever or on the goal line, we would bave been right in the hunt as well.

Kids have seen fleeting glimpses of excellence off and on for the past 15 years and that is what has been so frustrating, and why the start of the season has been so frustrating - we see the beginnings there, but can't put it together. If the team flat out sucked, it would be easy to go apple picking, or go rake leaves, or whatever else normal people do on a fall Saturday. But instead, we sit there in front of our televisions, hoping that day is the day they put it all together again.

I was there in January of 1994. The players, the fans, everyone there, thought that if FSU beat Nebraska, we'd win the National Title. I was on a bus, heading back to Houston, while we listened to that FSU/Nebraska game on the radio. When FSU pulled it out at the end, we were all celebrating as if we had won the title.

2005 involved a loss to USC in mid October. We haven't been in the national title discussion, late into November, since 1993.

We've had glimpses, but that is all.

And that talk was delusional. It was then and it is now. We were ranked behing FSU and Nebraska; we didn't want to admit it, but they were playing for the national championship.

thanks for the perspective, and dose of reality.

Are you suggesting there was no precedent for teams jumping other teams ahead of them, based on bowl results.

See the 77 National Title.

You're full of shit if you think that no one thought we had a chance at the title heading into that Cotton Bowl. A lot of people felt that if we beat A&M and FSU beat Nebraska, the head to head principle from 89 would be used again.

Moreover, we jumped from #5 to #1 in 77 after the bowl game.

I'll tell you - in 1977 we beat the piss out of the number one team in the country in our bowl game. In 1994, we beat a team that was ranked below us.

The number two and four teams also lost their bowl games, enabling us to move up.

The only team that could have claimed a championship was #3 Alabama, who beat #8 OSU. Which do you think was more impressive to voters - a team ranked #5 beating the crap out of a team ranked #1 or a team ranked #3 beating up on a team ranked #8.

Now compare to 1994: FSU was ranked number one and won their game. There's really no chance at winning a national championship when the team ranked number one ahead of you won their game. All of our talk about "precedent" was just wishful thinking. I wanted it to be true as much as you did and I thought the polling was horseshit. But the polls were what they were and there was no way we were going to win that championship.

Nebraska was.

Moreover, FSU didn't kick the piss out of Nebraska, it was a last second field goal.

Are you really saying we had no case to leapfrog FSU? And that you knew it from the get go?

the writing was definitely on the wall that the winner of the FSU-Nebraska game was going to win the national championship.

If the voters were going to do the right thing vis-a-vis the head-to-head results, they would have voted Notre Dame ahead of FSU before the bowls. We all know that the voters wanted Bowden to get his first NC if FSU beat Nebraska.

I know that Holtz -- as he well should have -- was talking a good game. I know that many players, managers and other students close to the program believed that wins by ND and FSU would result in Notre Dame being ranked number-one.

But the reality was that it wasn't going to happen. Unfairness aside, the difference between 1977 and 1993 was that every team above Notre Dame in the polls lost in 1977.

By definition, barring a tie (which was what I was rooting for), it was impossible for every team ahead of Notre Dame in 1993 to lose its bowl game.

Did I know at the time that the case wouldn't be heard by the voters? Yes, because FSU was ahead of us.

Either way, the idea is the same, it's been a long time since we were in the discussion, late into the season.

It's been flashes, but not much else.

Both in reference to my good points and to ND's football success.