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Notre Dame's Four Horsemen (above) helped forge a mythology. Could this year's Sooners help their program surpass it?

AP (top); Robert Beck/SI

Wall Street Journal sports columnist Darren Everson poses an interesting question in his piece from this morning.

If Oklahoma wins the school's eighth Associated Press national title by defeating Florida in Thursday's BCS Championship Game, could the Sooners be considered the greatest program in the history of college football -- a mantle carried by Notre Dame for generations?

"If Notre Dame no longer has more AP titles than anyone else, it must follow that the Irish no longer reign supreme," Everson writes. "What's more central to being No. 1 than being No. 1?"

Rankings whiz Richard Billingsley, whom Everson interviews for the column, thinks Notre Dame's place atop college football's all-time pecking order is secure regardless of Thursday's outcome.

Darren Sproles ran for the game-winning score Saturday.

AP

When Darren Sproles scampered for a 22-yard walk-off touchdown to propel San Diego past Indianapolis in Saturday night's wild-card playoff -- without NFL MVP Peyton Manning so much as touching the football in the extra frame -- you could see the overtime rules debate coming from miles away.

Today, two of SI.com's most respected NFL writers took opposite sides of the argument.

Taking the traditionalist stance, Don Banks says the league should maintain the status quo. "I've come around to the viewpoint that the current sudden-death OT format isn’t broken, and doesn’t need fixing," Banks writes. "Mostly because there is no perfect fix."

One possession each in overtime sounds completely equitable. But no overtime format I’ve heard of would ever be completely equitable. There’s always going to be an inherent advantage to the team that has the ball first, because it doesn’t have the pressure of trying to match a score to keep the game alive.

Then, on the flip side, how is it completely equitable when if you do give up a score first in overtime, you get the ball knowing that you have all four downs to keep the chains moving, rather than having to punt on fourth down, like the situation that the first-possession team faced? The second-possession team has 25 percent more downs to work with in trying to match or beat the other team’s score, because a punt is never going to be part of the equation for a team trailing in overtime.

On the other side, Peter King argues for reform. King's reasoning boils down to a single salient point: The outcome of an NFL game should never depend on a coin flip -- and sometimes it does.

Forget all the stuff about extrapolating what happens when Team B has to forget about punting, or the pressure that Team B would feel if Team A put a touchdown on the board. There’s nothing in football – except for an 8-8 team playing host to a 12-4 team in a playoff game, which I still can’t believe hasn’t been fixed by the league – as unfair as the overtime rule.

Just to state my reasons: In the 35 years since the NFL has had the current overtime system in place, 141 regular-season games have gone to overtime and ended with only one team having possession. So, on average, four times per year, a coin flip plays an inordinately major role in the outcome of an NFL game.

My fix is simple. I think that a coin should be flipped at the start of overtime, with the winning team having the choice of whether to take the ball first. But then, if neither team has the lead after the second possession of overtime, the game enters sudden death. That’s it. Each team is guaranteed one offensive possession, unless the defensive team on the first possession scores.

What's your take? Do you side with Banks or King? Or do you have an alternative solution neither writer touched on?

Debate: Should NFL alter OT rules? [SI.com]

John Feinstein makes a plea for Brian Johnson and the Utes.

Getty Images

Each day during the noon hour, we'll offer five reading recommendations from around the Web.

1. Stand up to BCS, Vote for Utah (By John Feinstein, Washington Post): The venerable Post scribe pens an open letter to the 72 members of the media who are entitled to cast a vote in the final AP poll.

2. On my decision to buy the Cubs (By Mark Cuban, blogmaverick.com): The owner of the Mavericks opens up on his blog about his decision-making process behind his pursuit of the Chicago Cubs.

3. When talking about Tebow, we should be talking about God (By David Whitley, Orlando Sentinel): Why does the media insist on ignoring Tim Tebow's faith? One Florida writer examines a conspicious gap in the coverage.

Jay Mariotti opines regularly on ESPN's Around The Horn.

ESPN.com

Yesterday, we discovered former Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti landed a job as a columnist for AOL Sports. No small achievement for a pundit Gawker's Hamilton Nolan describes as "easily the most despised columnist in Chicago, if not in America, for his ill-informed opinions, delusions of grandeur, and the undeservedly cocky cut of his jib."

With Monday's introductory column in the books, Mariotti hit the ground running this morning with a scathing criticism of Hall of Fame hoopster Charles Barkley, who was arrested on suspiscion of drunk driving early on New Year's Eve morning in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Mariotti claims Barkley is "stuck in permanent adolescence and has become a perpetual circus onto himself," and says David Stern should step in and advise TNT to suspend Barkley -- perhaps until the playoffs in April.

[H]e plays by The Charles Rules, which mock the sport as much as The Jordan Rules -- part of the shimmering legacy of his close friend -- brought intrigue. He has the gall to trash LeBron James for being "disrespectful to the game'' because James hasn't ruled out signing with New York in 2010, which pales in comparison to Barkley's relentless disrespect for the game for the better part of two decades. He tells James to "shut the hell up,'' when, obviously, Barkley has made a fine living as a blowhard who can't shut up. He is critical of players who aren't loyal to their teams when, of course, Barkley moped his way out of Philadelphia and Phoenix and let dissension overwhelm his last chance in Houston. Every time his lips move, he seems to lose more credibility, yet Barkley is shamelessly enabled by sports media friends who enjoy his quote-ability and company, fans who love his freewheeling commentary and a league that overlooks his issues because he sells the game.

The time has come to stop protecting the Round Mound of Clown.

He must be saved from himself so we can like him, not loathe him.

For that to happen, the bosses at TNT must chart a drastic course that isn't in the DNA of most TV programmers: They have to prioritize responsibility over ratings. With Stern's encouragement, they should summon Barkley, cite the accumulation of his misdeeds and suspend him for a lengthy period. Too often, he has slipped away with mere wrist slaps, typical of a "Charles Being Charles'' forgiveness pattern. This time, how about suspending him until the playoffs in late April? Can you do that, TNT? How about you, HBO? Can you keep him off the roundtables with Bob Costas?

What do you think? Do you think Mariotti's points have merit? Or are these just the rantings of a "shock jock" in need of an audience?

Charles Barkley: An American Idiot [AOL Sports]
Hated Columnist Finds Job On Internet Thingamajig [Gawker]

Luke Harangody hung 31 points on ninth-ranked G'Town.

US Presswire

Colt McCoy | The Texas quarterback and Heisman Trophy runner-up established his candidacy for the '09 award by completing a school-record 41 of 59 passes for 414 yards and a pair of touchdowns against Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. With two minutes remaining and Longhorns trailing 21-17, McCoy led his team on a 78-yard touchdown march -- completing seven of 10 passes for 76 yards and running for the other two -- to seal the dramatic 24-21 triumph.

J.C. Romero | Ten weeks after earning a pair of wins in the World Series, Philadelphia's reliable set-up man is expected to be suspended today for the first 50 games of next season after testing positive for a banned over-the-counter supplement. Last night, Romero preempted MLB's announcement and proclaimed his innocence to the Philadelphia Inquirer. "If people are intimidated because Major League [Baseball] is a big organization, so be it," Romero told the paper. "But they are not going to make an example of me thinking that I'm just a [dumb] Puerto Rican. It's not going to happen. It's not the way I'm built. For me to keep my mouth shut? That's not the right thing to do. If they want to bump me out of the game, so be it. What am I going to do, just sit back and take it? When I know in my heart I'm innocent? That doesn't fly well with me and it doesn't fly well in my house, either."

Luke Harangody | The reigning Big East Player of the Year expected a long spell on the bench after picking up his fourth foul with 15:17 remaining against ninth-ranked Georgetown. But Harangody returned at the 11:45 mark and scored 10 of his game-high 31 points down the stretch to help the No. 13 Irish to a statement-making 73-67 win.