if ever there was a college football program that needed a bone thrown their way, it’s got to be notre dame.

sports illustrated [si.com] is reporting that NBC has renewed its contract to broadcast notre dame “football games” through 2015.

in making the announcement, nbc sports head ziggy dick ebersol (shown above carrying charlie weis) cited nbc’s oft noted tradition of excellence:

“We’re big believers in how Notre Dame time and time again over all these generations has maintained its strength,” he said. “I don’t see that going away.”

apparently ebersol was on qualudes during the Gerry Faust, Bob Davie, Ty Willingham, Kent Baer and Charlie Weis eras.

we hate to be a buzz-kill for ebersol, but notre dame has averaged 6 wins and 5 losses over the last twelve years since lou holtz took off.

we’ll be back with more on this subject in the next couple of days.