GUSTO: Christopher Steiner's Sporting Chance.

The New York Times should reinvestigate itself and verify that Jayson Blair remains off the payroll, because recent events suggest the erstwhile hotshot journalist with a penchant for plagiarism may be lurking somewhere near the Times' sports desk.

That's the easiest explanation for the ridiculously stingy ranking -- No. 27 -- that this week's Times' college football computer program spit out for Northern Illinois. Blair and his bamboozling talents obviously have played a role in ranking the 7-0 Huskies so poorly; there simply can be no other explanation for something so nonsensical coming from our precious "newspaper of record."

Northern early this season cemented itself as college football's Cinderella after traveling to Tuscaloosa in the third week of the season and upsetting the Crimson Tide of Alabama in front of more than 83,000 fans. Northern's stadium capacity isn't even half that. The Alabama victory came two weeks after Northern shocked ACC power Maryland and one week before the Huskies would defeat Iowa State of the Big 12.

If the Huskies win out, they stand a good chance be the first non BCS-conference school to play in one of the four BCS bowls. Northern checks in at No. 10 in the BCS rankings, which were first released this week and incorporate several computer polls, such as the Times' along with the AP and Coaches polls. If Northern completes a perfect season, one of the only things that can derail the Mid-American Conference school from a BCS bid is a sabotage job of the BCS rankings.

The New York Times appears to be doing its best. The evidence against Blair and the Times is scandalously overwhelming. First, the basics: Blair had a laptop and we must assume that he still does; he exhibited the necessary high level of intelligence, albeit poorly used in his case; and it must be assumed that Blair can survive in the thorny world of spreadsheets and databases, which are needed to chart the absurdly complicated formulas for ranking college teams. Blair could pull this off -- after all, one doesn't become so wickedly cunning with a computer and mobile phone without retaining some knowledge of usefulness.

Yes, it's all becoming clear. All that's left is Blair's motivation to scuttle Northern's trip to big bowl land. Could the former University of Maryland student have been denied admission to Northern Illinois? Hmmm. Not likely. No, it must have been something else, something so scarring and so horrific that it would lead Blair to hatch a plan even more nefarious than his well-documented reporting escapades.

There is but one explanation. As a child, Blair must have bitten by the canine of the tundra -- a Huskie. A neighbor's dog, perhaps? A stray from the street? We'll never know. But with his hatred for sled dogs ensconced, Blair used his contacts at the Times to manipulate what is supposed to be a scientific formula for calculating a football team's on-the-field prowess.

What's scientific about ranking a 2-4 Notre Dame team three slots ahead of the 7-0 Huskies? Blair isn't an Irish name, is it?

Even the Coaches poll, the validity of which is dubious at best, pegs Northern at No. 16. The AP poll ranks the Huskies as No. 12. Most of the remaining computer polls used in the BCS poll put Northern in or near the top 10.

From the start of this season, MAC schools have thumbed their noses and dug in their cleats against the pomp and arrogance of the big conferences. Two top 10 teams, Pittsburgh and Kansas State, were felled at home by MAC teams, Toledo and Marshall respectively, in games that were supposed to be appetizing blowouts for the conference seasons of the Big 12 and the Big East.

This season stands as the best chance for the have-not conferences to stake their claim to some of the boodle. Each participating BCS bowl team takes home about $13 million to share with its conference, and the Northerns and Toledos want a piece of that. Newspapers shouldn't stand in their way.

Whatever the reason, rabies notwithstanding, the Times and Blair have gone too far this time. As if fabricating news stories and datelines weren't enough. One of the only things left unspoiled by Blair's and the Times' tentacles is that last bastion of pure competition: college football. Now they've set to fix that too.

The only hope is that the Huskies' string of excellence continues overriding any roadblocks tossed up by Blair and Co., enabling the small school to crash what has been a BCS party for the rich, powerful and privileged alone. Mush, Huskies. Mush.

Christopher Steiner has never played professional sports, but he was a first round draft pick in the Turkey Bowl. He lives in Chicago and has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.