The big story coming out of Sunday’s College Football Playoff bracket reveal wasn’t about any team in the CFP field, but one particular school that didn’t make it.
Notre Dame had consistently been ranked above Miami for weeks — despite the Hurricanes’ head-to-head win over the Irish in Week 1. So naturally, the Fighting Irish figured they were in the playoff field with neither team playing this past weekend and BYU losing in the Big 12 Championship. Well, that didn’t happen. Miami leapfrogged Notre Dame into the field.
So upset with their exclusion from the playoff, Notre Dame announced it wouldn’t play in a bowl game and skip the postseason all together in an act of apparent protest. That decision drew a lot of ire from college football fans and pundits alike, who already have strong thoughts about Notre Dame, likely stemming from its independent status.
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum didn’t hold back — does he ever? — on Monday morning’s ‘Get Up!’
“The crying from Notre Dame is quite frankly embarrassing,’ Finebaum said. ‘Everything Notre Dame has done since the moment this was announced is really beneath a great institution that should stand for principles and they cried, they didn’t get their way, and then they said, ‘We’re going home and taking our ball,’ like a 5-year-old on the playground by not going to a bowl game.
“… Notre Dame had very little to show on its resume. They’re not in a conference, that’s their own fault. They think they’re too good to be in a conference. And had they joined the ACC, which they by the way, they are a member of in every other sport, they would have played for the ACC Championship game, they would be in the playoff today. They wouldn’t be a bunch of sniveling crybabies and really quite frankly in my opinion, the laughing stock of college football.’
Besides being left out of the playoff, a big talking point coming out of South Bend is the weekly CFP rankings, which consistently had Notre Dame ahead of Miami and in the field. CFP committee chairman Hunter Yurachek never really had a good explanation for that, and his explanation for why Miami finally jumped the Irish wasn’t much better — claiming BYU’s heavy loss in the Big 12 Championship tipped the scales in Miami’s favor.
“It’s a legitimate criticism because this committee is not consistent… we’ll save it for some other time about the good or the bad of having these weekly rankings, they are misleading, but ultimately how many times has the committee have to tell us, ‘These will change on the final day of the season,’’ Finebaum said. ‘But we all read into them as Notre Dame did. But there’s precedent for that happening, so I’m sorry about (Notre Dame athletic director) Pete (Bevacqua) getting upset and having a bad morning, but I’ll say it again, and I’m going to say it until someone literally puts a shoe in my mouth: It is Notre Dame’s fault. They think they’re better than everybody, Greeny. And I’m sure Pete Bevacqua will have a press conference today and explain all the reasons why they’re independent, but their independence cost them a bid to the College Football Playoff. That is on them!”
Notre Dame and Bevacqua have a news conference scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 8. Get your popcorn ready.