Did that postseason thing really happen Sunday to Notre Dame football?
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SOUTH BEND — Let it sink in and sting.
It does. It should.
This is a difficult column about Notre Dame football because this was a column about Notre Dame football that wasn’t supposed to be written. Not about this team. Not about this season.
You sit down to write about Notre Dame football early Sunday afternoon and what this means and then stop. Nothing. You stare at that blinking cursor on a blank screen for five, 10, then 15 minutes. Nothing. You start and then stop. Start and stop again.
How do you make sense of something that makes no sense? The College Football Playoff committee has spoken and has told Notre Dame thanks, but no thanks. Good but not good enough. Sorry about those previous four bracket reveals, fellas.
For the last few weeks, Notre Dame football believed in the CFP system. The system then failed Notre Dame (10-2).
Notre Dame gets left on the outside of the College Football Playoff looking in? Yeah, sure. And we’ll have more than a foot of snow on the ground around town before December. Winter around these parts got a lot harder to handle without an Irish football postseason run to help. Thanks to four playoff games, last winter felt like it lasted four days. After Sunday, it feels like winter may last for four years.
We’re not going to see Notre Dame football on college football’s biggest stage the rest of the way and that stinks. We’re not going to see tailback Jeremiyah Love have another meaningful carry at Notre Dame in 2025 — and maybe never again — and that stings. We’re not going to see Malachi Fields or Eli Raridon or Jadarian Price. That’s painful.
We’re not going to see Marcus Freeman continue to be Marcus Freeman. We’re not going to see that Irish defense continue to evolve under coordinator Chris Ash, and that hurts. We’re not going to see Notre Dame get the chance to show the country what it showed us over the final 10 games of the 2025 season. That it was a College Football Playoff team. That it was worthy of chasing down and maybe even winning a national championship.
It’s over. The dream, the drive, the determination, the chase, it’s all over. Whatever bowl invitation that might come doesn’t matter. This was a CFP team in every way. This was a national championship-caliber team that won’t go anywhere near a national championship.
Sunday, December 7, 2025 won’t be a day that this Notre Dame football program shrugs off in a week or two or a month or six or even a year or five. At 12:33 p.m., on Sunday afternoon in what was supposed to be the day that Notre Dame football started on its path back toward playing for a national championship a second straight season, it learned that it would not get that chance.
And that Miami (Fla.) would.
It will take time and effort and more energy from inside the Gug that wasn’t expected to be spent on Sunday afternoon, but let’s see Notre Dame put a positive spin on this one. Is there one? A chance to still practice together for the next few weeks. A chance to play a football game. A chance to win a game. None of that means anything.
Can’t make sense of nonsense.
This 2025 Notre Dame team was special. It was going to prove it in postseason. It wasn’t going to have a home game, but that was OK. It would go on the road to Norman, Oklahoma or College Station, Texas and play with swagger and substance and win. It might stare down No.1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl and win. It might find itself in another game against nemesis Ohio State. This time, it would win. It was special.
It’s all over.
Sunday was a lot of things for Notre Dame. Sunday wasn’t a referendum on Notre Dame’s place in college football. Notre Dame is an independent. It guards that fiercely and without apology. It’s one of one. That can’t change. That won’t change.
Joining a conference is not the move after the CFP snub. Not now. Maybe not ever.
If you need to point fingers, and you will because that’s what we do, point one at that nonsensical selection committee which for four previous weeks gave the impression that Notre Dame was in the field. Point one at that dreck of a football league called the Atlantic Coast Conference. Also, though, point one at Notre Dame.
Notre Dame left itself open to what happened Sunday by starting this season 0-2. Notre Dame left itself open by opening at Miami (Fla.) with a redshirt freshman quarterback making his first collegiate start and a first-year defensive coordinator. Notre Dame thought it could handle Texas A&M as its first home game.
Notre Dame felt safe enough in its season that it didn’t feel the need to politick its way into the field. It didn’t have to beg. It didn’t have to grovel. It just played football. It won at football.
Until it lost. Big.
Notre Dame dodged disappointment last season when it got into the CFP field despite a loss to Northern Illinois. It was too much to expect to dodge disappointment two years in a row. Know who’s smart enough to know that? Notre Dame.
Play with fire … you know.
Still, when you ignore choosing the 12 best teams to include the other guys, a heavyweight is getting left out because a heavyweight always gets left out. It just so happens that it was Notre Dame. Next year, it will be someone else. It won’t be Notre Dame.
At 12:33 p.m., it became official that Notre Dame was not going to the playoffs. Shortly after, Marcus Freeman being Marcus Freeman, would gather his guys and try to make sense of something that makes no sense. He’ll get with them and get them to understand how to own this hurt and embrace this pain and let it take them to a place to ensure that this never happens again.
Don’t leave any doubt. Don’t allow your postseason fate to be decided by a selection committee sequestered in Grapevine, Texas. Don’t leave it up to Championship Saturday results or the Selection Sunday bracket to decide your direction.
Don’t carry that cautious confidence into Selection Sunday. Be sure, by your actions and your efforts over the previous 12 weekends, be rock-solid sure.
Dominate.
One day, one season, one CFP selection, Notre Dame football will be better for what happened Sunday.
When it is, watch out.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football left on the outside of the College Football Playoff
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