The revelation that Notre Dame has a secret agreement with the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee has not endeared the Fighting Irish to the rest of the country.
Following Notre Dame's playoff snub, in which it fell behind Miami in the final CFP rankings despite neither team playing that week, news broke that the Irish had a previous undisclosed agreement with the committee that if Notre Dame is within the top 12 of the final CFP rankings, beginning next year, it will be guaranteed a spot in the playoff regardless of the conference championship implications that left out not only the Irish and BYU this year, but Alabama a year ago. To say this information did not go over well with fans and administrators from around the nation would be an understatement.
The fact that Notre Dame, one of the only independent football programs in the nation, could receive preferential treatment over their respective teams left some athletic directors reportedly furious enough to consider blacklisting the Irish in the future.
“[Notre Dame's 2026 schedule is] probably going to get worse, especially if Notre Dame can’t come to an agreement with USC to extend their longstanding rivalry,” Yahoo Sports' Dan Wolken wrote. “Texas, also smarting from missing the CFP, has made noise about canceling its series with Notre Dame in 2028-29. Athletic directors in other leagues, who learned from Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger on Sunday about the memorandum of understanding that grants Notre Dame preferential playoff access, are threatening to freeze them out of future schedules. (Who knows if they’ll follow through. For all its issues, Notre Dame fills stadiums and drives TV ratings.)”
The implications would be massive if other teams, particularly those with national clout like Texas, refused to play Notre Dame in the light of this playoff guarantee. The Irish have managed to avoid joining a conference, even while enormously lucrative superconferences have been forming, because they have an independent broadcast deal with NBC, as well as a scheduling partnership with the ACC, of which Notre Dame is a member in almost every other sport.
That TV deal could, in theory, be in jeopardy or at least at risk of a decrease in money if Notre Dame can't schedule the likes of Texas A&M, USC, or Texas every year. And the pact with the ACC actually already might be in jeopardy.
In the aftermath of Miami leapfrogging Notre Dame to snag a CFP spot, Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua, notably the former chairman of NBC Sports, said that the university's relationship with the ACC was “strained” because of the conference's campaigning for Miami at the expense of Notre Dame. While he said all things can be “healed” in time, Bevacqua questioned why the ACC would “attack an unbelievably important business partner of yours in football and a member of your conference in 24 other sports.”
Notre Dame, which is set to open next season vs. Wisconsin at Lambeau Field, will not be competing in a bowl game this postseason due to controversially rejecting a bid shortly after being left out of the CFP.
