Day after: Thoughts on Notre Dame’s CFP snub and no bowl game

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It was one of the toughest Sunday’s ever for Notre Dame football, as it found out they weren’t one of the twelve teams in the College Football Playoff, then as a team, decided to opt out of playing in a bowl game.

The season is abruptly over. This is a hard pill to swallow for the Irish, as it very well looked like they were going to have a very good shot at making an extended run in the playoff. There was plenty of shockwaves around college football, and rightfully so.

Most everyone had a say in what transpired on Sunday for Notre Dame, and many were very critical of the choice made by the committee. After getting a chance to sleep on what happened, here are my thoughts on the Irish, the College Football Playoff, and opting out of a bowl game.

Alabama should never have made the College Football Playoff

This is my biggest gripe, as the committee basically showed their hand on Tuesday, moving the Tide over Notre Dame in their rankings. It’s unprecedented for a team to lose in a championship game and remain in the same spot, but Alabama somehow overcame that. The team that lost to Florida State in the opener, Oklahoma in the middle of November, a late win over 5-7 Auburn and then getting beaten soundly by Georgia in the SEC Championship game is better than Notre Dame? It’s laughable.

If head-to-head mattered so much, why wait to move Miami over Notre Dame?

This is the second biggest, and one that also didn’t make much sense. Sure, Miami had beaten Notre Dame in the season-opener, but so much has changed between that game and now. The Irish fixed their defensive problems, and saw quarterback CJ Carr grow into a leader of the offense, not just relying on star running back Jeremiyah Love. Miami lost to Louisville and SMU, nowhere close to as good of losses as Notre Dame, but it came down to the result on the field.

I don’t mind the end result coming to this, but why then didn’t the committee rank the Hurricanes over the Irish? The timing of this choice didn’t make sense, as it seemed like they had to include an ACC team after Duke surprisingly won the conference championship game. You’d have to think that a ranked Virginia would have pushed Miami out and Notre Dame in. More pain.

No bowl game for Notre Dame

I’ll go into a few more details below on this one, but to me, this was all about trying to stick it to ESPN and the ACC. The television company claimed they didn’t have any influence on the rankings show that was broadcast on their network, but had reporters at every major site getting inside information. The ACC had been campaigning against Notre Dame for weeks, trying to play up the fact that Miami should be in over them, even going as far as playing their matchup from earlier this year on repeat for two days. While we have been accustomed to seeing teams do this, it hasn’t been in response to not getting selected to the playoff. Notre Dame is taking one of the sport, and hopefully this leads to major changes to the selection system.

No extra reps for Notre Dame, no Senior send-offs

To me, this is why I would have sucked it up and played a game. There have been so many instances where players emerged during bowl practices and subsequent game and then breakout the following season. Notre Dame won’t get a chance to do that. What I think is just as unfortunate, for those seniors, they’ve played in their final game for the Blue and Gold without really knowing. It would have been nice to send those players off with another contest, but they can now focus on what is next in their lives and careers.

Notre Dame will be missing out on bowl money payout

There was surely a financial decision in all of this, as the school knew by opting out they’d be losing out on millions. Notre Dame is one of the few that can make a move like this, and not feel like it has lost out on a major payout. It’s a statement that needed to be made, and with last year’s run, there was some extra in the bank to absorb it.

Notre Dame’s season end’s with plenty of what-if’s

At the end of the day, four points were the difference between 10-2 and 12-0, and in the end, Notre Dame paid the price for the slim margin of error. It shouldn’t have been that way, and it will be a season no one will ever forget. The Irish had star power with running back Jeremiyah Love and cornerback Leonard Moore, fixed its issues from earlier in the season and were peaking at the right time. We’ll never know what this team could have done against this field, but we do know that they would have been favored in the majority of games that they would have played in. That fact alone still makes me wonder what the committee was thinking. They missed out on having one of the best teams in the country due to politics. The sport is all about performance, and Notre Dame did more than enough to show they were deserving of a spot in the playoff.

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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Day after: Swallowing Notre Dame’s CFP snub & opting out of bowl game

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