Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua says ACC did 'permanent damage' by promoting Miami for CFP

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It's no surprise Notre Dame is miffed after being surprisingly left out of the College Football Playoff bracket Sunday. The school's athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, told Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger as much in the hours following the Fighting Irish's snub, saying, "We feel like the playoff was stolen from our student-athletes."

With the wound still fresh, Bevacqua, like many others, took aim at the lack of consistency with the weekly ranking shows and selection committee, which jumped Miami over Notre Dame at the last possible second, giving the Hurricanes a spot in the CFP.

A day later, however, Bevacqua found a new target for his ire: the ACC. Bevacqua appeared on "The Dan Patrick Show" on Monday and claimed the ACC did "permanent damage" to its relationship with Notre Dame for the way it pushed for Miami to claim a spot in the CFP bracket. 

"We were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack their biggest business partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports. … They have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame."

Patrick then asked Bevacqua to clarify that final comment, which led to the following response from the Notre Dame athletic director:

"We didn't appreciate the fact that we were singled out repeatedly and compared to Miami, not by Miami, Miami has every right to do that. But it raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us."

Throughout the interview, Bevacqua made sure to express he wasn't upset with Miami or any other ACC team. It was the conference's actions that have him angry.

As Bevacqua also pointed out, while many different Notre Dame sports play in the ACC, Notre Dame football does not. It remains one of the only big-name teams without an official conference. The university has faced criticism for that decision, as Notre Dame cannot play for a conference championship due to … not being in a conference. Winning a conference could have gone a long way toward Notre Dame getting into the CFP, but it wasn't an option for the program. 

Losing a conference championship might also impact a team's ranking, though that didn't seem to matter much following Alabama's loss to Georgia on Saturday in the SEC championship. Despite losing by multiple touchdowns, Alabama jumped Notre Dame to make the CFP. 

Bevacqua still couldn't understand why that was the case Monday. 

Bevacqua also reiterated many of the points he expressed to Yahoo Sports on Sunday, saying he doesn't understand how the selection committee made the decision to snub Notre Dame and claiming the university had the rug pulled out from under it. 

He also spoke about the team's decision to decline a bowl game invite following the CFP snub, saying it came down to Notre Dame's captains. 

Despite a fantastic season, in which the team went 10-2, Notre Dame will not take part in a bowl game. It's an unfortunate result considering Notre Dame — despite the CFP snub — remains one of the best teams in the nation.

But it's clear the snub did damage to both the university and its players. And it might have even caused a rift between Notre Dame and the ACC, which could lead to some unpleasantness when the Fighting Irish's other sports teams gear up for conference games. 

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