Snubbed by CFP, Notre Dame AD says ACC | College News
One day eliminated from studying that Notre Dame had been overlooked of the College Football Playoff’s 12-team area, Fighting Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua was still fuming.
In addition to reiterating his frustrations with the CFP rating course of, Bevacqua also turned his ire on the Atlantic Coast Conference during a Monday morning look on “The Dan Patrick Show.”
“We were mystified by the actions of the conference, to attack, you know, their biggest, really, business partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports,” Bevaqua said. “And I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t say that they have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame.”
With the exception of soccer and males’s hockey, all Notre Dame athletic groups are members of the ACC. While the Irish soccer crew has maintained its standing as an impartial, it has had an settlement since 2014 to play video games against at least 5 ACC groups each season.
Miami, on the other hand, is a full-fledged member of the ACC.
Notre Dame opened the season Aug. 31 with a 27-24 loss at Miami, adopted by a one-point loss to Texas A&M the next week. But the Irish went 10-0 to end the season, beating their opponents by an average of almost 30 factors (a quantity that was bolstered by their 70-7 win over Syracuse on Nov. 22).
Miami also completed the common season at 10-2. Despite the head-to-head win over Notre Dame months earlier, the Hurricanes have been ranked below the Irish every week since the 2025 CFP rankings launched in early November — until this week, when Miami jumped to No. 10 and the Irish landed at No. 11.
With No. 20 Tulane and No. 24 James Madison getting computerized bids as the American Athletic Conference and Sun Belt Conference champions, respectively, that left Notre Dame out of the 12-team CFP bracket. Notre Dame subsequently announced it was withdrawing from consideration from any school bowl video games this season.
“What we’re so confused by and frustrated with is the process,” Bevacqua said. “Every step along the way, since the first CFP rankings came out, we were led to believe we were in as long as we took care of business. And we certainly took care of business with this 10-game winning streak.
“Can you think about that first ranking? You know, we and Miami were both 6-2. They had obviously already beat us the first game of the year. They were 18th. We were 10th. You know, the only thing that we did since that point was win every game by over an average of over 30 points. And you know, all of a sudden we’re 11th and on the outside looking in.”
CFP choice committee chairperson Hunter Yurachek said during the playoff’s choice show that Miami’s season-opening win over Notre Dame hadn’t factored into the rankings until this weekend — when it turned clear that the 2 groups can be side-by-side in the rankings and one crew would probably end up out of the postseason image.
At that level, Yurachek said, he had the committee members rewatch the Miami-Notre Dame sport.
“You look at those two teams on paper and they are almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, the results against common opponents,” Yurachek said. “But the one metric we had to fall back on … was the head-to-head.”
Last month, the ACC soccer account on X posted a graphic that highlighted Miami’s win over Notre Dame and listed how the groups in contrast in sure statistical classes, with the Hurricanes popping out on top in two of the three instances.
Also, according to ESPN, the ACC Network replayed Miami’s win over the Irish more than a dozen instances last Thursday and Friday.
“We didn’t appreciate the fact that we were singled out repeatedly and compared to Miami,” Bevacqua said. “Not by Miami — Miami has every right to do that, but it raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us.”
Asked by Patrick if Notre Dame would reevaluate its general relationship with the ACC after this, Bevacqua merely said, “I would just say it’s been strained.”
Patrick then requested if the harm was irreparable.
“Well, you never say irreparable, but it’s opened our eyes,” Bevacqua said. “And you know, it caught our attention.”
The ACC didn’t immediately reply Monday to The Times’ request for remark.
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