MORGANTOWN - On the one hand, Brian Kelly should be praised for his rationality.

Let's face it, how many coaches in his position would be willing to all but dismiss the ever-growing reality that no matter what his football team does this season, it isn't likely to have a prayer of playing for the national championship?

Not many, I'd wager.

Mack Brown certainly didn't do it at Texas a few years ago, and he wasn't even trying to get into the title game, but merely the Rose Bowl.

You remember, right? With a couple of weeks left in the 2004 season and his Longhorns seemingly on the outside looking in, Brown mounted a furious public relations campaign to sway votes in the polls that make up two-thirds of the process for determining the BCS standings. He wanted to make sure his team jumped up to no worse than No. 4, high enough to automatically qualify for the only BCS bowl berth that hadn't already been claimed.

And it worked. Texas inexplicably got enough votes to overtake California and force the Rose Bowl to take Texas as an automatic qualifier. Cal dropped to No. 5 and ended up in the Holiday Bowl, the highest-ranked team ever to be left out of a BCS bowl.

We bring that up not to rehash a five-year-old blight on the BCS process - one of many, by the way - but to illustrate a point. Coaches are always trying to lobby and finagle and do whatever they can do to improve their positioning, whether it be in the BCS standings for national championship consideration or a better bowl, or even simply in the public consciousness for a spot in some non-descript bowl game.  

It's refreshing to see Kelly not yet delve into the process. Maybe he realizes that he'd be whistling into the wind.

Here's the deal, though. Heading into Friday night's game with West Virginia, Kelly's Cincinnati football team is one of six unbeatens remaining. The Bearcats are No. 4 in both polls that matter in the BCS standings (coaches and Harris) and No. 5 in the BCS standings themselves. The top three are heavyweights Florida, Alabama and Texas. The other two are TCU and Boise State.

Now, if none of those top three teams lose unexpectedly, the BCS title game will pit Texas against the Florida-Alabama SEC championship game winner. It doesn't matter what Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State do. It's a done deal. You know it. I know it.

And, apparently, Kelly knows it.

Let's face it, how many coaches in his position would be willing to all but dismiss the ever-growing reality that no matter what his football team does this season, it isn't likely to have a prayer of playing for the national championship?

Not many, I'd wager.

Mack Brown certainly didn't do it at Texas a few years ago, and he wasn't even trying to get into the title game, but merely the Rose Bowl.

You remember, right? With a couple of weeks left in the 2004 season and his Longhorns seemingly on the outside looking in, Brown mounted a furious public relations campaign to sway votes in the polls that make up two-thirds of the process for determining the BCS standings. He wanted to make sure his team jumped up to no worse than No. 4, high enough to automatically qualify for the only BCS bowl berth that hadn't already been claimed.

And it worked. Texas inexplicably got enough votes to overtake California and force the Rose Bowl to take Texas as an automatic qualifier. Cal dropped to No. 5 and ended up in the Holiday Bowl, the highest-ranked team ever to be left out of a BCS bowl.

We bring that up not to rehash a five-year-old blight on the BCS process - one of many, by the way - but to illustrate a point. Coaches are always trying to lobby and finagle and do whatever they can do to improve their positioning, whether it be in the BCS standings for national championship consideration or a better bowl, or even simply in the public consciousness for a spot in some non-descript bowl game.  

It's refreshing to see Kelly not yet delve into the process. Maybe he realizes that he'd be whistling into the wind.

Here's the deal, though. Heading into Friday night's game with West Virginia, Kelly's Cincinnati football team is one of six unbeatens remaining. The Bearcats are No. 4 in both polls that matter in the BCS standings (coaches and Harris) and No. 5 in the BCS standings themselves. The top three are heavyweights Florida, Alabama and Texas. The other two are TCU and Boise State.

Now, if none of those top three teams lose unexpectedly, the BCS title game will pit Texas against the Florida-Alabama SEC championship game winner. It doesn't matter what Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State do. It's a done deal. You know it. I know it.

And, apparently, Kelly knows it.

Should he rant and rave and cry and scream at the possibility that his unbeaten team will be left out of the mix? Well, perhaps. If the Bearcats do go unbeaten - they must still play WVU, Illinois and Pitt - they would be an unbeaten team from one of the six power conferences. Only one such team, Auburn in 2004, has ever been excluded from the championship game during the BCS era.

Sure, Kelly would have reason to complain, but it wouldn't do him one iota of good.

At least not now.

Instead, Kelly is simply sitting back and waiting for things to transpire. He's seen what can happen over the final weeks of the season. More often than not, what seems crystal clear in early November is long forgotten by early December. Who is to say Texas won't lose? Who is confident that Florida and Alabama will have a nice, clean 12-0 vs.12-0 SEC title game?

For that matter, who is to say Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State won't all crash and burn?

So Kelly wisely sits back and says as little as possible. But he also is polishing his arguments in case things do fall his way.

"It's really too soon to talk about it,'' Kelly said. "We [Cincinnati, TCU and Boise] have three teams that are undefeated in front of us. Now, if the scenario unfolds that there's only one team undefeated in front of us, then I think it's, 'Let's go put our resumes up.' But until that happens, we've kept our focus strictly on the Big East championship.

"But there's no question, if this thing changes at the top, then TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, the undefeated teams should all obviously be able to make their case.''

Kelly will wisely wait to see when and if that happens.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.