Opinion: Notre Dame snub was a CFP committee failure

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The Notre Dame Fighting Irish should be in the College Football Playoff. But they’re not, because the CFP committee gave the last at-large spot to an undeserving team.

No, not Miami (FL) — Alabama. The way I see it, both Miami and Notre Dame should’ve qualified, and Alabama should be, for the second year in a row, on the outside looking in.

Let me get this out of the way first — the Fighting Irish, of course, bear some blame. It was clear since summer that the Irish would have to, at a minimum, split their first two games — on the road at Miami and at home against Texas A&M. A tall order, since both were ranked.

Notre Dame lost both by a combined four points. The Irish struggled against Miami before coming back, while the A&M game was a shootout that came down to the final play — a fourth-down-and-goal touchdown in which A&M appeared to have gotten away with a hold.

So yes, the Irish put themselves in this position by not winning one of those two games. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock deserves some flak for not running the ball enough at Miami, and first-year defensive coordinator Chris Ash deserves blame for not having his secondary in the right place in the first three games.

All that said, the Irish also did what they needed to do. We all knew that as soon as they lost the first two, they had to win out. They did. The committee spoke of the “eye test” — aka not just winning but playing well, and Notre Dame passed that with flying colors in every game but one. The Fighting Irish struggled with self-inflicted wounds in a gritty win over Boston College, but they blew out just about every other opponent, including quality ones, in their other games. The defense was never as dominant as it was in 2024, but it improved and was very, very good. Meanwhile, the running game continued to dominate, and the passing game was much better than in 2024.

The only thing the Irish lacked was a field-goal kicking game.

Some critics claim Notre Dame’s schedule was too soft, but going into 2025, it looked tough. Boise State was a playoff team last year. Rival USC appeared to be a team on the rise and was in and out of the Top 25 all year long. Schools like Arkansas and NC State weren’t Top 25 material but seemed good enough to possibly trip up the Irish. Navy was 7-1 at the time the Midshipmen played Notre Dame.

Looking at the schedule in August, the only gimmes seemed to be Purdue, Boston College, Stanford and Syracuse. Syracuse actually started 3-1 before former Notre Dame quarterback Steve Angeli got hurt.

It’s not Notre Dame’s fault that Arkansas went into the tank and Boise State was a non-factor (though the Broncos did finish 9-4). And Notre Dame did have quality wins against USC and at Pitt.

That said, in the end, the real problem is that for whatever reason — SEC bias, a make-good for last year, just general incompetence — the committee selected Alabama over a team with a stronger resume.

Look at it like this — if teams A, B and C are vying for two spots, and A and B have the same resume, and A has a tiebreaker over B but both A and B have stronger resumes than C, shouldn’t A and B be in?

Alabama had one more loss than either Notre Dame or Miami. The Crimson Tide had a bad loss to Florida State and another bad loss to Georgia in the SEC championship game, and almost lost to a mediocre Auburn squad in the Iron Bowl. Alabama’s third loss was a close one to an Oklahoma team that is in the playoff — playing Alabama again in round one — but hasn’t always looked like a playoff team.

Much has been made about the committee putting Notre Dame ahead of Miami for weeks before switching the two, and about the committee only really comparing the two and using the head-to-head matchup after BYU lost the Big 12 championship. BYU’s influence was confusing, since some pundits felt BYU had to lose for Notre Dame to get in.

To me, though, it was about ‘Bama. I even told Michael this after BYU won — I wouldn’t feel good about Notre Dame being in unless Alabama lost to Georgia, and especially if they lost big and looked bad.

Which is what happened. Alabama lost by three touchdowns and couldn’t even gain more rushing yards than an idle Irish team.

To be clear, if Alabama had a clearly better resume than Notre Dame and Miami, I’d understand Notre Dame being out on the head-to-head. I don’t like it, since the teams have changed a ton since late August, but I would understand it’s an easy deciding factor.

The committee was always going to upset someone — especially since the automatic bids for schools like Tulane and James Madison reduce the number of at-large bids. BYU has a legitimate beef, as does Vanderbilt. Even a three-loss Texas team that often looked bad in terms of the eye test still had three wins against the Top 25 and only one bad loss (Florida). The Longhorns have a reason to be upset. They even beat Texas A&M.

But in the end, Notre Dame is the victim of what I think is the second-worst snub in the relatively young playoff era. Florida State had it worse in 2023. But the Irish are right there. Notre Dame was considered the fourth-most-likely team to win it all according to betting sites.

If the committee’s job is to get the 12 best teams into the field, accounting for automatic bids, it failed.

I have mixed feelings about the Irish declining to play in a bowl game following the snub. All I can say for sure is that I hope the players who return in 2026 play with a chip on their shoulder — and that next year’s team shows the world what it missed en route to the first national championship since 1988.

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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Opinion: Notre Dame snub was a CFP committee failure

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