The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program and its fans are not happy about how the final College Football Playoff rankings played out. The Irish were ahead of the Miami Hurricanes for much of the year, but the Canes surpassed them in the final rankings (Miami defeated Notre Dame in the regular season), leading to Miami being included in the playoff and leaving the Irish on the outside looking in, despite neither team having a game over conference championship weekend.
Since the final rankings, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua made it known that he felt permanent damage had been done to the school’s relationship with the ACC, where it competes 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 has revealed that he has spoken with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey about the state of the playoff, which he believes should expand to 16 teams with five automatic qualifiers and 11 at-large bids.
Fans reacted to Bevacqua online.
“Let’s call this snub exactly what it is: extortion. The corporate suits running college football are trying to strong-arm Notre Dame into a conference because they are greedy for a slice of a pie they didn’t bake,” one fan wrote on YouTube.
“This team was better than last year’s team. They deserved a shot for the national championship,” someone else added.
“If they are in the conference they would be ACC champs and wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. Media world saying we didn’t play any good teams besides first two games. Well if ND is the ACC champs there is nothing anyone can say,” one fan added.
It’ll be interesting to see if this leads to further talks between the SEC and Notre Dame about a permanent home in the conference.
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.