In a move that shocked fans and media nationwide, the College Football Playoff (CFP) Committee left the Notre Dame Fighting Irish out of the 12-team playoff on Sunday.
Needless to say, Irish fans were upset over the committee’s decision. But they weren’t alone; Notre Dame administrators were equally upset and let the committee know about it.
“My feelings and the feelings here are just shock and, really, an absolute sense of sadness for our student-athletes,” Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua told Yahoo Sports. “Overwhelming shock and sadness. Like a collective feeling that we were all just punched in the stomach.”
Bevacqua went further, blasting the weekly CFP’s weekly rankings shows, calling them a “farce.”
“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 before 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.”
Ten days ago, the Irish were ranked 9th in the CFP poll. Then, for reasons that remain a mystery, the committee dropped the Irish two spots in the next two polls, despite Notre Dame winning its final game 49-20 and being idle this weekend. This week’s drop in the rankings put the Irish at 11, placing them one spot beyond the final at-large ranking.
The ranking became even more quizzical given that the committee had consistently ranked the Irish ahead of then-12th-ranked Miami for weeks. Then, in a week where Miami was idle as well, the Canes moved past Notre Dame into the final at-large spot.
The CFP Committee Chairman, Hunter Yurachek, attempted to explain the committee’s rationale for moving Miami ahead of Notre Dame.
“We had that side-by-side comparison, and you look at those two teams on paper, and they are almost equal,” Yurachek said. “The one metric we had to fall back on was head-to-head.”
Miami defeated Notre Dame 27-24 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami in the season opener.
While head-to-head is undoubtedly a valid tiebreaker, it’s unclear why Yurachek believes the head-to-head was only valid when Notre Dame and Miami were ranked side-by-side. If the committee felt that head-to-head was the tiebreaker, then why did they rank Notre Dame ahead of Miami for weeks, only to move them past the Irish in the final ranking?
ESPN’s Chris Fowler did not press Yurachek on this point.
“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?”
Many have called for Notre Dame to join a conference, claiming that if it were a member, it would be able to play in a conference championship game and avoid being left out of the final rankings. However, BYU, a former independent, joined the Big 12 with exactly that thought process in mind, and still got left out of the playoff.
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