Notre Dame was just Catholic Vanderbilt after all

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Notre Dame missed the College Football Playoff. That's surprising; it was a -1000 betting favorite to make the 12-team field just minutes before the Selection Show began.

Hours upon hours will be stacked on AM radio debating the Irish's snub in favor of fellow 10-win teams like Alabama, Miami and Oklahoma. Ultimately, what it came down to was resume. Notre Dame ripped off a 10-game winning streak after starting the season 0-2. Its losses were to playoff teams Texas A&M and Miami, both by three points or fewer. That was a hiccup that could have been erased had the good teams on the schedule remained good.

They did not.

Let's look at Notre Dame's key wins. Boise State won a Mountain West title but finished with four losses and played in a conference that was locked out of the committee's process even as two other Group of Five champions made the cut. USC finished 9-3 but had only one victory over a top 25 opponent. Pittsburgh beat two ranked teams this fall, catching both Florida State and Georgia Tech in the middle of free falls.

There's a case to be made Notre Dame's best win this fall came over 9-2 Navy. That was a 55-10 rout. It also came against a team whose biggest triumphs in 2025 came against good-not-great Memphis and South Florida teams.

This made Notre Dame vulnerable in the committee's eyes. It also left the Irish with foreign company. In the end, their resume looked a lot like another, less debated playoff snub; Vanderbilt.

Both Notre Dame and Vanderbilt went 10-2 against a schedule dotted with ranked teams. Both were led by Heisman Trophy candidates — running back Jeremiyah Love for the Irish and Diego Pavia for the Commodores. Both suffered their only losses to upper-crust opponents; Vandy's two defeats came on the road against Texas and Alabama. Both beat ranked opponents only to see those opponents drop off the map in the weeks that followed.

Ultimately, that last piece sunk each program's national title hopes. Notre Dame likely makes the field if Boise State rises back to the top of the Group of Five pecking order or USC scratches out 10 wins. Vanderbilt has a case if any of the then-top-15 opponents they beat — South Carolina, Missouri and LSU — don't fall off the map. Instead, what looked like resume-affirming victories were welcomed with a collective shrug when it came time to draft the 12-team bracket.

Notre Dame and Vanderbilt were relegated to line items in actual playoff teams' resumes. Three of the four teams who beat them wound up in the field. Texas, the missing link in that chain thanks to three losses, had its own Irish-like argument for overcoming a slow start. These were, ultimately, two very good teams that absolutely could have created problems across the 2025 College Football Playoff. And they were, ultimately, deemed lacking because what could have been marquee wins instead fizzled as the season wore on.

That was the difference. The committee didn't care that Notre Dame's losses came by a combined four points while 10-3 Alabama got mollywhopped in the SEC Championship Game. They looked at the wins and decided the Irish belonged in a bucket with Vanderbilt. And even when Vandy is having a historic season, that's not where Notre Dame wants to be.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Notre Dame was just Catholic Vanderbilt after all

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