Notre Dame AD Says ACC Has Done ‘Permanent Damage’ to Relationship After CFP Snub

Notre Dame is an independent team in football. Yet, the Irish have a partial relationship with the ACC. A relationship that Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua says has been “permanently damaged” after the ACC openly campaigned against the Irish in the run-up to the final College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings on Sunday.

“We were mystified by the actions of the conference, to attack their biggest business partner in football and a member conference in 24 sports,” Bevacqua said Monday during an interview on the Dan Patrick Show.

The tension centered around the committee’s handling of the debate between Notre Dame and Miami. While Miami defeated Notre Dame in the first game of the season, the committee’s first rankings had the Irish ranked 10th, and the Hurricanes ranked 18th.

It’s important to note that the committee was well aware of Notre Dame’s opening-season loss to Miami. Yet, they had Notre Dame ranked eight spots higher than the Canes. All that happened over the next five weeks was that Notre Dame won all their games and Miami won all its games.

Neither Notre Dame nor Miami lost a game over the next five weeks, and Notre Dame remained ahead of the Canes until the final poll, when the committee suddenly moved Miami ahead of Notre Dame.

Another, perhaps bigger point of contention, was the committee’s handling of the ranking between Alabama and Notre Dame. The Tide were ranked tenth, one spot behind the Irish, in the Week 14 poll. Then, on a rivalry weekend where Notre Dame went on the road and throttled Stanford 49-20 and the Tide barely won a game against 5-win Auburn and an interim coach, the committee mysteriously moved Bama past Notre Dame, ranking them ninth and the Irish tenth.

Even more mysteriously, the committee kept Alabama at nine after the Crimson Tide was dismantled by Georgia in the SEC championship game, on a weekend when every other team that lost its conference championship game fell at least one spot.

Then, the committee argued that since Notre Dame and Miami were now ranked back-to-back, they could justify moving Miami ahead of Notre Dame based on head-to-head results.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the committee’s “logic” was questionable at best. Never, in the history of the CFP, has a team held an eight-spot advantage over another team in the first week of the poll and lost its spot to that team a month later without losing a game.