Gump 42, Rudy 14.

We always knew Forrest Gump was a better athlete than Rudy.

After all, Gump was an All-American at Alabama and one of the most dangerous kick return men in college football.

Rudy? Well, he logged one career sack at Notre Dame. That’s better than nothing, I guess.

In all seriousness, the BCS championship game pitting the undefeated (but generally unimpressive) Fighting Irish against the SEC juggernaut Crimson Tide was just as much a folly as comparing Gump to Rudy.

It was never much of a game.

You know a game is a stinker when the highlight of the night is hearing an announcer go creepy uncle on the Alabama quarterback’s girlfriend.

You know a game is a clunker when the only thing that is in doubt is whether or not Katherine Webb, the reigning Miss Alabama and the main squeeze of Tide QB A.J. McCarren, will get more than 100,000 Twitter followers before the end of the fourth quarter.

Somewhere Chip Kelly, Oregon’s coach who has flirted with NFL teams for two years only to jilt them, is seething.

The Ducks surely could have put up a better effort against Alabama than Notre Dame.

It’s a shame this game turned into such a disaster. On paper, it was an intriguing match-up.

The Irish had surrendered just nine touchdowns all season. Their offense, pretty pedestrian for most of the season, had a knack of coming up big in the most critical moments.

Notre Dame seemed to be a team of destiny. The luck ran out for the Irish.

Alabama has a way of doing that to teams. The Tide was clearly better and is clearly a dynasty with three national titles in the last four years.

The result is sure to bring out the calls for a true playoff system.

Critics will point out that the Irish probably would not have survived to the final game had they had to go through an eight-team bracket to get there and we all would have been spared Mondays debacle.

The plus-one format is sure to mitigate some of this, but no system can completely eliminate title-game mismatches.

Just ask the NFL. The entire 1980s were plagued by lopsided Super Bowls.

And mullets.

I think even if McCarren had a haircut Billy Ray Cyrus would be proud of, he’d still be the toast of college football.

He proved no defense, even one as good as Notre Dame, can stop a quarterback who has the weapons around him like McCarren.

Opponents had generated just one drive of 75 yards or longer against Notre Dame this season. Until Alabama got to them, that is. The Tide rolled to TDs on drives of 82, 80, 97 and 86 against the shell-shocked Irish defense.

Alabama is no Wake Forest — or Pitt.

Momma was wrong, Gump. Alabama isn’t like a box of chocolates. You always know what you are gonna get.

Dominance.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.