Recently, the Notre Dame football program found itself excluded from the college football playoff in favor of Miami, a team with the same record that beat them in the regular season. While these facts would seem to make the committee's decision easily explainable, the Fighting Irish are upset since they were ahead of the Hurricanes in every iteration of the rankings until the last week, until they were jumped.
Notre Dame showed off its petulance in the aftermath of this decision by declining to play in a bowl game, and now, athletic director Pete Bevacqua is going on the offensive in trying to defend his team's resume.
“We had one of the most dominant 10-game runs in the history of college football,” he said, per Nicole Auerbach of NBC Sports on X, formerly Twitter.
The only problem for Notre Dame was the fact that there wasn't a single contending team on their schedule in that ten-game stretch, and the two good teams that the Irish did play this season, Miami and Texas A&M, both resulted in losses.
The move from the committee was interpreted as a clear message for Notre Dame to finally join a conference, although at this point, there is no indication that the school will consider doing so.
Last year, the Fighting Irish fell just short of a national championship, losing to the Ohio State Buckeyes, and this year, they won't even get the chance to compete for the pinnacle of the sport.
In any case, Notre Dame will now look ahead to a 2026 season in which they will want to make sure they win against the best teams on their schedule so that they don't have to rely on beating weak opponents as a rationale for why they should be in the playoff.
