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Think of bowls as businesses. 

They conduct campus recruiting just like Accenture, Google, and Matt Leinart.

And if you were CEO of the Sugar Bowl, you'd be actively pulling for Notre Dame and Alabama to win out.

Why?

Because that would give you the right to hire the Irish and put them to work alongside Urban Meyer and Florida.

By way of explanation, if Alabama runs the table, that would entail an SEC Championship game victory over the Gators and earn the Crimson Tide a berth in the BCS National Championship game.

Losing its conference tie-in representative, the Sugar Bowl would get first choice from the remaining pool of BCS qualifiers. And given its SEC affiliation and national appeal, Florida would be an automatic choice.

That's one half of the puzzle.

If Notre Dame runs the table, the Irish will surely achieve the top-14 ranking necessary to become eligible for an at-large BCS selection.

Here's where things get dicey.

The selection order for the January 2010 BCS games is as follows: Orange, Fiesta, Sugar.

So there's a very real danger that the Orange or Fiesta Bowl (businesses in their own right) would want Notre Dame to fill its seats and bolster its television ratings, creating a match up against the likes of Georgia Tech or Boise State/TCU. 

Ugh.

Thankfully, the BCS founding fathers had the foresight to provide a loophole known as "Team Selection Procedures 5-D."

It reads, "The conferences and Notre Dame may, but are not required to, adjust the pairings taking into consideration...whether alternative pairings may have greater or lesser appeal to college football fans as measured by expected ticket sales for the bowls and by expected television interest, and the consequent financial impact on Fox and the bowls."

Ah, what a gem.

Could any clause better summarize the nature of the BCS?

Suffice it to say, a Florida-Notre Dame pairing would sell the tickets and generate the television ratings necessary to exercise Plan 5-D.

Urban Meyer versus Charlie Weis. The one that got away against the portly house wife Notre Dame eventually married, together under the Superdome roof.

It would put Alabama-Texas in Pasadena to shame.

Imagine the commotion, pitting the patron saint of college football against the fan base that dubbed him its savior.

Mark May and Lou Holtz would chase each other in circles around ESPN, whipping towels with Rece Davis adjudicating and ND grad Hannah Storm, a one-woman jury.

Florida product Erin Andrews would immediately be assigned to hotel hallway interview duty.

Get Mel Kiper and Todd McShay hooked up to IVs and set them in front of cameras to give us a differing daily version of Jimmy Clausen's draft status.

Fox's Thom Brennaman would be reunited with the son he hasn't had since last January.

There would be standing room only media sessions in New Orleans, and both schools would have to re-sign their coaches to contract extensions to stem the tide of inevitable Urban-to-UND questioning.

And not even that would deter the South Bend Tribune .

Of course, ND Nation legions would readily run head-first into the Gators' mouth, and a Sugar Bowl date with Florida surely spells disaster for the Irish.

Perfect.

Another Notre Dame BCS debacle is exactly what Domers need to start the pursuit of Meyer anew.

Go Irish! Roll Tide! People, see the potential!

The Sugar Bowl does.

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