So back to back BCS bowls don't mean anything? I think it's only fair to compare both coach's full body of work, at which point your the title of your post becomes much more dubious. Here's some excellent analysis comparing this year's Irish to the Miami program of the late 90's following the "death penalty" of scholarship limitations for various program infractions
here
All you need to know about Zook you can learn from his tenure at Florida. His teams were consistently mediocre despite bringing in National Championship caliber talent each year. On the plus side, it appears that Benn was worth every penny.
The 2nd half of the Purdue game portends good things for the Irish future. We're still almost certainly looking at an 0-8 start, but great talent of the FR class is beginning to creep through (Clausen, Tate, Parris, Allen). The dark days are almost behind us.