The College Football Playoff will remain at 12-teams for the 2026 season after the CFP’s Management Committee was unable to come to a consensus on further expansion of the playoff.
As a result, Notre Dame’s Memorandum of Understanding with the CFP committee will also go into effect next season as it currently stands, meaning that the Fighting Irish would reach the CFP if it’s ranked in the top 12 of the CFP rankings.
It’s a change that doesn’t sit well with Stephen A. Smith, who went on a heated rant during Friday’s edition of ‘First Take’ on it.
‘Why do we have a separate category for Notre Dame? What makes them so damn special?,’ Smith said. ‘… This is sickening. … Bump Notre Dame. Get your ass in a conference and compete like everybody else.’
‘…SEC got a (TV rights) contract, ACC got a contract, the Big Ten got a contract as a conference. Notre Dame got a contract with NBC all by its damn self and then expects the privileges. This is not right. This is not right,’ he continued.
The Fighting Irish were at No. 9 and ahead of Alabama and Miami for multiple weeks in previous CFP rankings releases during the season before falling down to No. 10 in favor of the Crimson Tide following the final week of the regular season.
The committee decided to keep Alabama at No. 9 in the final CFP rankings on Selection Sunday following its SEC championship game loss to Georgia, and bump Miami ahead of Notre Dame — despite both the Fighting Irish and Hurricanes not playing in conference championship week — by honoring their head-to-head tiebreak after not using it in previous rankings. CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek said the committee decided to bump Miami over then-No. 11 BYU due to how the Cougars performed in their Big 12 Conference Championship game.
‘I respect Notre Dame. I want to state for the record that I think they should have been in the postseason. I get it, they were one of the top 12 teams in the nation. But when people are complaining, ‘well Alabama went ahead of them.’ Well, Alabama went to Athens and beat Georgia on the road weeks earlier. Yeah, they got stomped in the SEC championship game by Georgia a few weeks later, but they were pretty banged up at that particular time and they had beaten Georgia on the road. They played a conference championship game. What was Notre Dame doing?,’ Stephen A said.
‘They were at home sitting on their couch. Why? Because they’re not a member of a conference.’
Notre Dame opens up the 2026 season with another edition of its Shamrock Series against Wisconsin on Saturday, Sept. 6 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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