What was the Notre Dame AD's reaction to CFP snub?

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Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua is, unsurprisingly, unhappy with the fact that the Fighting Irish were the first team out of the 2025 College Football Playoff.

“My feelings and the feelings here are just shock and, really, an absolute sense of sadness for our student-athletes,” Bevacqua said in an interview with Yahoo Sports. “Overwhelming shock and sadness. Like a collective feeling that we were all just punched in the stomach.”

Bevacqua told Yahoo that the weekly ranking shows are a “farce” that gives false hope to coaches, players and fans.

“There is no explanation that could possibly be given to explain the outcome,” Bevacqua said. “As I said to Marcus, one thing is for sure: Any rankings or show prior to this last one is an absolute joke and a waste of time. Why put these young student-athletes through these false emotions just to pull the rug out from underneath them having not played a game in two weeks and then a group of people in a room shatter their dreams without explanation? We feel like the playoff was stolen from our student-athletes.”

Notre Dame fell one spot from last week’s rankings and Miami (FL) jumped two, although neither school played this weekend. Miami was behind Notre Dame for the past month, but then jumped past both the Irish and the BYU Cougars for the final at-large bid.

Hunter Yurachek, the chair of the CFP committee, said that once BYU lost to Texas Tech in the Big 12 championship game, it put Notre Dame and Miami side by side, and the Hurricanes got the nod by virtue of beating Notre Dame early in the season.

“We had that side-by-side comparison and you look at those two teams on paper and they are almost equal,” Yurachek said. “The one metric we had to fall back on was head-to-head.” Yahoo reports that Yurachek had the committee re-watch that game before Sunday’s selection show.

Notre Dame personnel and fans understood that the head-to-head loss could be a tie-breaker, but are also bewildered by the fact that Notre Dame was eight spots ahead of Miami during the first of six rankings shows.

Many pundits and analysts had actually suggested that a BYU loss to Texas Tech would help Notre Dame, because otherwise the Big 12 would have two teams in the field, thus reducing available at-large bids. Most pundits also theorized that if Alabama lost the SEC Championship game, especially by a large margin, the Crimson Tide would be out and both Notre Dame and Miami would be in.

Indeed, Alabama lost 28-7 in a showing that was even uglier than the score would suggest, yet the Tide are in and Notre Dame is heading home.

“If the rankings shows are legitimate, there is no logical explanation of what happened to us,” Bevacqua said. “Have one ranking show at the end, like Sunday. What’s the point of doing anything prior to that?”

Bevacqua and others point to ESPN’s $1 billion investment in the playoff. That package includes the six shows.

Former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby once told Yahoo:  “My personal opinion is we come out with rankings too early. Doing it every week is hard on the chair and the committee. Two polls, one midseason and one at the end, would be better. But ESPN would flip out.”

Bevacqua told Yahoo that Notre Dame folks expected to be the No. 9 or No. 10 team.

“[Head coach] Marcus [Freeman] said it perfectly: Usually there are reasons and answers and explanations, but we don’t have one for you with this,” Bevacqua said. “This is shocking and upsetting. An utter disbelief and sadness from our student-athletes, who were led to believe since the CFP rankings started of what they needed to do and did everything they were asked to do.”

Notre Dame, like other teams, had a chance to present its case to the committee each week over the past six weeks, with deputy AD Ron Powlus presenting.

“The feedback we got in the last presentation Thursday was that it was the best presentation that they’ve received in the two years of the expanded playoff,” Bevacqua said.

No wonder Freeman is so baffled.

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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: What was the Notre Dame AD’s reaction to CFP snub?

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