On Sunday afternoon, the final college football playoff rankings came out, and to the surprise of many, the Notre Dame Football program was not among the 12 teams who will be competing for a championship. Instead, the Irish were jumped by Miami, who did beat them earlier in the regular season, despite neither team having played over the weekend.
In a protest of the decision, Notre Dame has since declined its bowl game invitation, and now, the Fighting Irish's athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, is speaking out against the committee's final rankings, and specifically, the ACC's lobbying for Miami to get into the playoff.
“We were mystified by the actions of the conference, to attack their biggest business partner in football and a member conference in 24 sports.
“They have done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame,” he said, per Jack Soble of On3 Sports on X, formerly Twitter.
On paper, it makes perfect sense that Miami would be ahead of Notre Dame in the rankings, given that the teams had identical 10-2 records this season, Miami won the head to head matchup, and the Irish lost to every good team that they played during the regular season.
However, the fact that the Irish were ahead of the Hurricanes in each edition of the rankings and then were jumped in the final week seems to be what has Notre Dame fans so pressed.
In any case, it remains to be seen what impact this decision will have on future iterations of the playoff.
