The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program and its fans are outraged with how the final College Football Playoff rankings shook out. After being ahead of the Miami Hurricanes for much of the year, the Canes surpassed them in the final rankings, leading to Miami being included in the final field and leaving the Irish on the outside looking in, despite neither team playing over conference championship weekend.
After the rankings, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua said that permanent damage was done to the school’s relationship with the ACC, where it belongs in many sports outside of football.
“It has created damage. That’s not just me speaking; people a lot more important at this university than me feel the same way,” Bevacqua said of the way things played out, per ESPN’s Matt Fortuna.
Now, Bevacqua is revealing that he has gone on to have talks with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey about the state of the playoff. Namely, Bevacqua revealed that he made it clear to Sankey that he believes that 16 is the number the playoff should expand to.
He said that while he feels a four-team playoff would have gotten things right this season, he made it clear to the SEC commissioner that 12 wasn’t right for this season, and that 16 would’ve gotten the job done.
It’ll be interesting to see if Sankey reveals any more details from their conversation, and if Bevacqua gets his wish, which specifically includes five automatic bids for conference champions and 11 at-large bids.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.