The Notre Dame football team continues to be baffled by their snub from this year's College Football Playoff selection committee. Notre Dame didn't receive a CFP berth, despite 10 straight wins and a strong resumé. Fighting Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua says that this snub reflects his belief that Notre Dame should remain independent in football.
“We are out there fighting for ourselves. That’s something we accept,” Bevacqua said, per Yahoo Sports.
Notre Dame overcame two losses at the beginning of the season to Miami (FL) and Texas A&M, to finish the regular season with 10 wins. Notre Dame announced it won't play in a bowl game, following the CFP snub.
Bevacqua was at a loss to understand why his team didn't get in.
“There is no explanation that could possibly be given to explain the outcome,” Bevacqua said. “As I said to Marcus, one thing is for sure: Any rankings or show prior to this last one is an absolute joke and a waste of time. Why put these young student-athletes through these false emotions just to pull the rug out from underneath them having not played a game in two weeks and then a group of people in a room shatter their dreams without explanation?
“We feel like the playoff was stolen from our student-athletes.”
The Fighting Irish finished the season with a 10-2 mark.
Why didn't Notre Dame make the College Football Playoff?
Notre Dame lost a head-to-head battle with Miami (FL) for the final at-large bid. The Fighting Irish lost their very first game of the season to the Hurricanes.
“We had that side-by-side comparison and you look at those two teams on paper and they are almost equal,” CFP chair Hunter Yurachek said. “The one metric we had to fall back on was head-to-head.”
That explanation wasn't good enough for Notre Dame's athletic director, who saw his team included in the field week after week.
“If the rankings shows are legitimate, there is no logical explanation of what happened to us,” Bevacqua said. “Have one ranking show at the end, like Sunday. What’s the point of doing anything prior to that?”
The Fighting Irish must now wait until next season to prove they belong in the field.
