Updated: November 2, 2005, 3:36 PM ET

Just For Argument's Sake ...

From green being the most relevant color in the Charlie Weis contract extension discussion to who has the ultimate say in the future of postseason college football, Ivan Maisel tackles all the hot topics.

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Maisel By Ivan Maisel
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From nagging questions to soapbox moments to Heisman hype, Ivan Maisel tackles the hottest topics in college football.

1. Notre Dame gives Charlie Weis a contract extension after going 5-2.
Notre Dame gives Ty Willingham no extension after going 8-0 in 2002.
So what gives with Notre Dame?
There is no question the new Fighting Irish head coach galvanized Notre Dame football. There is no question the team that had been mediocre only one season before established residence in the top 10. There is no question that applies not only to the Irish this season under Weis but to the Irish three years ago under then-first-year-coach Willingham.

Charlie Weis
Charlie Weis' contract extension at ND has people talking.

With Notre Dame 5-2, the university announced Saturday that Weis' contract had been extended through 2015. Willingham, two years after his start caused Sports Illustrated to put the Irish on the cover with a billing that said, "What a Difference a Coach Makes," was fired.

"I'm not going to be, shall I say, all that excited about those kind of comparisons," athletic director Kevin White said Tuesday.

White did explain in some detail why the university decided to lengthen its relationship with Weis. On the day he was hired, and over and over again in the ensuing 11 months, Weis has talked about his love of his alma mater and his desire to retire from coaching there.

"You guys didn't ask him, and I didn't encourage him to say that," White said.

Contracts have become more sophisticated and, in general, longer in term. "There aren't any contracts less than five years," White said, "and you're starting to see them north of five years."

That has been dictated in part by recruiting, which has a longer cycle than it used to. Though NCAA regulations forbid formal recruiting contacts before the spring of a recruit's junior year in high school, White said the players Notre Dame recruits already have their list of schools in place by then.

"If it's rumored likely that somebody is not going to be here, that puts you in a negative position," he said.

The rumblings of interest from the NFL had reached White's ears. If speculation is any judge, there might be 10 openings in the Sunday game. Weis spent 15 seasons in the NFL and is a well-known personality in that community.

Now that Weis has established himself as a well-known personality in the outside world, ticket-selling owners were bound to come after him.

White, guarded in what he would say publicly about Weis and the NFL, said, 'Were there [NFL] people in my ear? Of course there were.'

And that is all the difference between Weis and Willingham. Three years ago, the university had no reason to believe anyone would come after Willingham. Extending Weis, and not Willingham, has nothing to do with race, as my Web site colleague Jason Whitlock suggested.

Whitlock made a compelling case that Willingham did a better job in his first season than Weis has done in this one. But the color involved here is green. Willingham didn't get an extension because White didn't get a lot of phone calls telling him to be ready to pull out his wallet.

There is one other interesting part of this regarding contracts. Even three years ago, the public believed Notre Dame still operated under the idea of the sanctity of the five-year contract. Terry Brennan had gotten five years in the 1950s. Gerry Faust had gotten five years in the 1980s.

Willingham didn't have to worry, the theory went, because Notre Dame never went back on its word to give a coach five years. Notre Dame changed its attitude toward a coach's shelf life last year. Willingham got tossed out because of that new attitude. Weis got a new contract. Unfair, perhaps. A response to the marketplace, definitely. Racial? Nope.

2. Who's on the All-Unsung Team?
By definition, this All-Unsung team will focus on ball handlers, because they're the only ones ever sung about. Linemen are all unsung.

(As an aside, it's ball handlers and not "skill position players." The latter is an ignorant term. Ask offensive linemen how much skill goes into what they do.)

The running back who has avoided publicity the way he avoids tacklers is Wake Forest senior Chris Barclay. He ranks seventh in the nation in rushing, with 124.75 yards per game, and he has been nothing if not consistent over the course of his Demon Deacons career. Barclay is 2 yards short of his third 1,000-yard season. He is all but a shoo-in to lead the ACC in rushing for the third time and is about to become the fifth player in league history to surpass 4,000 career rushing yards.

And even though he made All-ACC last season, Barclay is unknown outside his own conference.

Part of the problem is that Wake Forest has never strayed too far from .500 during Barclay's career. The Demon Deacons have a cumulative record of 20-25 in that span. Another part is that he temporarily lost the starting job at the beginning of this season to redshirt sophomore Micah Andrews. Once Andrews had a second fumble returned by the defense for a touchdown, Barclay reassumed his starting job and took off. He rushed for 204 yards and two touchdowns last week against Duke, earning the third ACC Offensive Back of the Week Award of his career.

At quarterback, Colorado State fifth-year senior Justin Holland has paid more dues than a union pipe fitter. Holland did his time on the depth chart, winning the starting job last season. He broke his ankle in the seventh game of the year. Although he had shown some potential, completing 61.4 percent of his passes (121-197), Holland also threw 10 interceptions and only six touchdowns.

In other words, no one outside Fort Collins expected Holland to begin November ranked fourth in the nation in passing efficiency. His completion percentage is up (132-237, 64.1 percent); his picks are down (eight); and his touchdowns are way, way up (20). After an 0-2 start (road losses to Colorado and Minnesota), the Rams have won five of six. They go to No. 20 TCU on Saturday with a chance to take control of the Mountain West Conference race.

At wide receiver, in this Year of the Trojan, any wideout not named Jarrett or Smith qualifies as unsung. Oregon State senior Mike Hass has been noticed by defensive coordinators, but it hasn't mattered. He gets open, anyway. With a first-year starter throwing to him, with defenses accounting for him, Hass still leads the nation's wide receivers by nearly 30 yards per game.

Hass already has caught 69 passes for 1,237 yards, an average of 17.9 yards per reception and 154.6 per game.

All from a guy who walked on in Corvallis.

"He was one of those guys standing in the back of the [receivers'] line," coach Mike Riley said. "Every time he'd go in, he'd make a play. The kids even noticed it. We put him at flanker to see if he could beat those guys out. He did. When he was a sophomore, he caught 44 balls for an average of 23 yards a catch. Last year, he caught 86 passes for a lot of yards [1,379]. … There are times when defenses had three people going to him."

On one such play against Washington State, with the defense focused on Hass, quarterback Matt Moore rolled out. As the defense reacted to that, Hass took off upfield, and Moore hit him for a 63-yard touchdown.

Jarrett, Calvin Johnson of Georgia Tech and Jeff Samardzija of Notre Dame have gotten more attention, but no receiver has produced more than Hass.

3. Which is the best one-loss team?
Penn StateWisconsin Despite all the worry about having too many undefeated teams to fit into the Rose Bowl, we're not that far from having too many one-loss teams to fit there, either. If you think arguing over the merits of undefeated teams is loud, step back and recall 2000 and 2001, when one-loss teams played for the national championship.

Some believe the BCS got it wrong in 2000, when Florida State, not Miami, went to the Orange Bowl and lost to Oklahoma. Everyone outside of the state of Nebraska -- and probably most of the Huskers in it -- believes the BCS got it wrong in 2001, when Nebraska, rather than Oregon or Colorado, played in the Rose Bowl and got humiliated by Miami.

So which team is the best? We have the reverse situation of 2000. Florida State beat Miami, but is ranked lower than the No. 5 Hurricanes because of the No. 9 Seminoles' subsequent loss at Virginia.

Miami is the one-loss team ranked the highest. The Canes had the good sense to lose on the opening weekend of the season. That is, after all, why Florida State and Miami play their rivalry on Labor Day. If you're going to lose, lose early. And if Miami figures out how to win at Virginia Tech, the Canes will open a wide margin over the other one-loss teams.

If they lose, however, they're no longer a one-loss team. And since Miami has lost four of its last five visits to Lane Stadium, this discussion will focus on the Wisconsin-Penn State winner, Florida State, Oregon and Texas Tech.

First: Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are not as good as the others. They have played one ranked opponent, No. 2 Texas, and lost by 35 points.

Next: Oregon. If Ducks quarterback Kellen Clemens had remained healthy, Oregon could have sneaked up on anyone. He is out for the remainder of the regular season with a broken ankle, and his backup, Dennis Dixon, is banged up, too. The Ducks are done.

Next: TCU and Fresno State. TCU lost at SMU, which might have been the team's collective Come-to-Jesus talk but still can't be excused in a discussion of the nationally prominent. Fresno State still has a game at No. 1 USC. The Bulldogs are the only one-loss team that still has a chance to prove itself against the best, so let's just wait and judge them Nov. 19.

LSU has the best talent of any one-loss team, but also has the toughest road ahead. The Tigers will have to beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and then beat either Georgia or, in a rematch, Florida. Beating the Tide will take a disciplined effort. The Alabama defense is one of the two best in the nation. LSU has been a lot of things this season, but disciplined on the field hasn't been any of them.

If the Tigers win in Tuscaloosa -- and they have won their last two trips there -- then they would get either the Dawgs or the Gators. Until we see D.J. Shockley at full strength again, it's difficult to predict anything about Georgia. Florida played a tough game against LSU in Baton Rouge. A rematch on a neutral field would be every bit as tough, if not more so.

It would be great fun to see Florida State play the winner of the Wisconsin-Penn State game. The big question with the Seminoles is whether their young players can continue to mature rapidly enough to compensate for the number of injuries that have beset the team.

If you ever wanted to play in the secondary for legendary defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews, now is your chance. In the meantime, quarterback Drew Weatherford is improving enough that Florida State doesn't have to rely on that defense nearly as much as it did in September.

Still, I'm in with the winner in State College. LSU may be the best of the one-loss lot, but Penn State has the best combination of talent and a safe road to remain with only one loss. Penn State has a very good defense and the home field, the combination of which should be enough to beat back Wisconsin. That leaves only a road trip to Michigan State between the Nittany Lions and a 10-1 finish. Don't rule JoePa out of the Rose Bowl just yet. If any among USC, Texas, Virginia Tech, Alabama and UCLA join the one-loss bunch, Penn State will still be able to make a compelling case that it's the best.

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