Irish eyes aren’t smiling
Amid the swirling storm of fan outrage surrounding the College Football Playoff’s (CFP) selection of 12 national championship candidates, the University of Notre Dame has made itself a lightning rod.
Last season’s runner-up didn’t even make the field this year despite posting a 10-2 record and finishing the regular season ranked ninth in the country. While there are valid arguments both for and against the Fighting Irish’s exclusion, it’s their reaction to being left out that I’d like to focus on here.
You’ve perhaps heard the expression “take your ball and go home.” It refers to a childish response to perceived injustice—namely, leaving in a huff, forcing others to scramble to find another way to keep something going. Notre Dame personified that expression here: Instead of accepting an invitation to the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando, Fla., where they would have faced Brigham Young (BYU) on Dec. 27, the Irish declared their season officially over.
For a program as storied as Notre Dame’s, it was a bad look. The Irish came off as college football’s version of Veruca Salt, the entitled, bratty girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who constantly gets her way because her daddy fears feeling her wrath if she doesn’t.
Now, before Notre Dame fans start filling this column’s comments section with angry screeds, they have several reasons to feel their team’s exclusion was unjustified.
Let’s start with who did make the playoff: Five teams from the Southeastern Conference got in, taking nearly half the tournament’s slots. One of them is Alabama, which lost badly to Georgia in the SEC title game and is the only three-loss team in the CFP field.
The CFP’s selection committee reportedly didn’t want to penalize the Crimson Tide for losing its conference championship game. Yet the committee did exactly that to BYU: The Utah-based Mormon school’s only two losses came against Big 12 champion Texas Tech.
ESPN is the sole media rights holder for CFP games through the 2031-32 season. The cable sports network is also the exclusive media rights holder for SEC football games. Certainly, the CFP has incentive to keep its television partner happy by stocking its field with SEC teams—whether they’re the most deserving of berths or not. The whole thing reeks of unfair bias.
Notre Dame should learn from BYU and Vanderbilt, two other schools that, like the Irish, suffered two losses and didn’t qualify for the CFP.
Also in the CFP is Miami. Like Notre Dame, the Hurricanes went 10-2. One of their wins came against the Irish in the teams’ season opener. Even if Alabama didn’t deserve a playoff berth more than Notre Dame, Miami arguably did.
Miami is the Atlantic Coast Conference’s lone representative in the CFP despite not even qualifying for its conference title game. Unranked Duke is the ACC champ, highlighting an absurdity that only occurs in major college football—namely, a team that doesn’t win its conference can make the championship tournament field while the conference champion must settle for a second- or third-rate bowl game. (Duke is headed to the Sun Bowl in El Paso.)
It's also worth noting that Notre Dame’s only losses came at the beginning of the season, to Miami and Texas A&M. Both schools finished the season ranked among the nation’s top 10, and the Irish lost to them by a combined four points before reeling off 10 straight victories to close out their season. Miami’s two defeats, by contrast, came against unranked Louisville and Southern Methodist, and both came at or after the season’s mid-point.
Except for its Oct. 18 triumph over Southern California, none of Notre Dame’s victories came against a team ranked among the nation’s Top 25. Half of its wins, in fact, came against teams with losing records. Miami had no wins over ranked teams besides the Irish. Thus, even granting that the Hurricanes beat Notre Dame head-to-head, the Irish arguably had the better regular season resumė.
And I won’t even get into Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua blasting ACC commissioner Jim Philipps for lobbying to get Miami into the playoff ahead of the Irish. Except in football, in which it competes as an independent, and men’s ice hockey, Notre Dame competes in the ACC in all sports in which it fields teams. Since Notre Dame has steadfastly resisted joining the ACC—or any other conference—in football, Bevacqua can’t now cry, “Betrayal!”
In fairness to Notre Dame, most college bowl games are meaningless exhibitions, played for bragging rights only, that serve as filler content for ESPN. The best players typically skip them because they don’t want to risk injury and cost themselves a shot at the National Football League (if they’re eligible for the league’s draft) or the chance to use the transfer portal and capitalize on name, image, and likeness deals at another school (if they have college eligibility remaining).
Regardless, Notre Dame should learn from BYU and Vanderbilt, two other schools that, like the Irish, suffered two losses and didn’t qualify for the CFP. BYU accepted its fate without complaint and will face Georgia Tech in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea, meanwhile, said his Commodores have only themselves to blame for not making the CFP because they failed to win when they needed to.
It isn’t a good look, Notre Dame.
