USA Today Journalist: Notre Dame is ‘cheating college football’
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The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have been dominant to start the college football season and came in at No. 2 in the latest AP Poll. However, the Fighting Irish haven’t exactly faced a gauntlet up to this point in the campaign, and it could be argued that the only real test of the year for head coach Marcus Freeman and his team will be their November 7 clash with the No. 3 Miami Hurricanes.
It’s not something that’s wasted on USA Today’s Matt Hayes.
“You’re telling me the SEC and Big Ten are playing nine conference games each against the best players in college football, and a majority of those 34 teams are playing another game against a power conference school,” Hayes wrote in a column published on Tuesday.
“And Notre Dame is playing what? A handful of gimme putts, annual games against teams it declares “rivals” (Stanford, Navy), Purdue, Michigan State and who knows or who cares after that.
“We’re getting cheated, people.”
Notre Dame’s rigged free pass to CFP is cheating college football.
https://t.co/ULd75K7slg— Matt Hayes (@MattHayesCFB) October 13, 2026
Hayes goes on to argue that the SEC and Big Ten, the preeminent conferences of college football, willingly gave Notre Dame a “free pass” to the College Football Playoff because of an obsolete ideal that “television loves the Irish.”
In Hayes’ estimation, what television really loves is compelling matchups, and Notre Dame’s schedule is largely lacking in those.
“It doesn’t matter what happens next month in South Bend against Miami, the result is simply CFP seeding,” Hayes opined.
“Can Notre Dame get ready nine times within either conference, play at a high level and win over and over? Can it play a 10th game against a power conference opponent, and do the same?” he asks. “Can it compete with the best players and best coaches in college football on a weekly basis, year after year after year ― and be among the top 4-6 teams to receive a CFP bid?”
Hayes finishes by noting that Notre Dame athletic director knows that to keep its lucrative media rights deal with NBC, the Fighting Irish will have to play the cream of the crop, which is why more SEC and Big Ten teams are slowly being added to its schedule in the coming years.
For the time being, however, he feels that the Fighting Irish’s “rigged free pass to CFP is cheating college football,” as he wrote in his post on X.
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