Notre Dame opts out of bowl games after being bounced from College Football Playoff field

NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...

For weeks leading up to the College Football Playoff bracket reveal, Notre Dame looked like it was in good position to make its second straight appearance.

The Irish had done everything they could after an 0-2 start to reposition themselves for a berth. They won 10 straight and were ranked ninth or 10th in every weekly ranking.

On Sunday — after sitting idle Saturday while other teams played in conference championship games — Notre Dame received a shock from the CFP committee. Miami, which had been ranked No. 12 and also was idle over the weekend, climbed two spots to No. 10 to claim the final at-large bid. That pushed Notre Dame to No. 11 and out of the 12-team field.

No. 20 Tulane and No. 24 James Madison were the final two teams behind Miami after receiving automatic bids as the fourth- and fifth-highest-ranked conference champions.

ESPN’s Jen Lada was on location in South Bend, Ind., during the rankings show and reported on the broadcast that athletic director Pete Bevacqua said the team felt “utter disbelief, shock and sadness” and the Irish felt like they had the rug pulled out from underneath them.

Lada said Bevacqua questioned the rankings process, saying it gave the Irish false hope. He called any rankings before the final ones “a farce and total waste of time.”

A few hours later, Notre Dame announced via social media that the team decided it will not play in a bowl game.

“As a team, we’ve decided to withdraw our name from consideration for a bowl game following the 2025 season,” the team posted. “We appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we’re hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026.”

There was some uncertainty last week on the outside looking in about whether Notre Dame, which lost by a total of four points to Miami and No. 7 Texas A&M in its first two games, might be in danger of being pushed out of the playoff.

The committee moved Alabama ahead of Notre Dame in the second-to-last rankings, for some reason giving the Tide extra credit for a win over unranked Auburn. On Sunday, Alabama stayed at No. 9 despite dropping to 10-3 with a 28-7 loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship game.

BYU’s 34-7 loss to Texas Tech in the Big 12 championship game dropped it behind Miami. With Notre Dame and Miami then side by side, the CFP committee gave the Hurricanes the edge because of their 27-24 season-opening win over the Irish.

“Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungry for with Notre Dame and Miami,” CFP committee Chairman Hunter Yurachek said on the broadcast. “You look at those two teams on paper, and they were almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, their results against their common opponents, but the one metric we had to fall back on was the head-to-head.”

Yurachek said the committee rewatched the Notre Dame-Miami game to inform the debate.

He said the way Miami’s defense played Notre Dame’s run game was one thing the committee noted. Notre Dame star Jeremiyah Love had just 10 carries for 33 yards in that game, which was quarterback C.J. Carr’s first career start.

“Then there was observation from the coaches in the room where Notre Dame did a lot of chasing of some of the athletic receivers, especially on the Miami side,” Yurachek said in a news conference. “And it just felt like there was a little bit more athleticism on the side of Miami versus Notre Dame. Then the fact that Miami’s defense really stifled Notre Dame’s running game like nobody else did the entire season.”

Lada said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman addressed the team after it missed the playoff and said he had “no answers” for why the Irish didn’t make the field.

Notre Dame’s best win of the season was against No. 16 USC. The Irish didn’t beat another ranked team, but they did beat teams by an average of 29.7 points per game over their winning streak. That included ending the season with a 70-7 win over Syracuse and a 49-20 win over Stanford.

Those games were the last for a talented group of players that likely will include Love. The junior Heisman Trophy candidate finished the season with 1,372 rushing yards and 21 total touchdowns.

As for the rest of the CFP field, Indiana received the No. 1 seed after beating No. 2 Ohio State on Saturday in the Big Ten championship game. No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Texas Tech also received first-round byes.

No. 5 Oregon was followed in the rankings by No. 6 Mississippi, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 9 Alabama and No. 10 Miami.

Alabama will play at Oklahoma to start the playoffs Dec. 19. The Dec. 20 games are Miami at Texas A&M, Tulane at Mississippi and James Madison at Oregon.

Ohio State will play its quarterfinal in the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31. On Jan. 1, it will be Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl, Indiana in the Rose Bowl and Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

Yurachek was asked about the criticism of the weekly rankings shows, and he said the committee uses them to give “a peek behind the curtain” of its process.

“Obviously college football has the most passionate fan bases across the country,” he said. “Everyone can spin the metrics in favor of the team or teams that they support. So you’re always going to have controversy.

“That’s why we debated for so long 9, 10 and 11 until the early morning hours and woke up at sunrise to do the same thing to try and make sure we got it right.”

____

More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos