It's clear this playoff system doesn't work. James Madison and Tulane have no business being in the playoffs. It's affirmative action for weak conferences. They'll get blown out in their games. So what's the point? No one is watching after the first quarter.

As for Notre Dame, they chose a weak schedule. Their last 5 games were against BC, Navy, Pitt, Syracuse, and Stanford. None of those are competitive teams. These are effectively practice games. And when they did play significant teams like Texas A&M and Miami, they lost.

And now Notre Dame is being absolutely pathetic and petulant and refusing to play BYU in a bowl game.

Notre Dame managed to kill both the value of bowl games and their own reputation as a football school this year. Great job, Notre Dame.

I think a lot of Notre Dame recruits will decommit after this nonsense. It's a highly emotional program completely detached from reality.

And if the powers that be want to save Bowls, there should be very significant penalties on Notre Dame for refusing to play football because they chose to be toddlers.

If Notre Dame football wants to be taken seriously, join a conference and/or play a competitive schedule.

The only thing that allows Notre Dame to be "independent" is its historical brand. But they wrecked that this year. Notre Dame is the team to hate going forward.

Anonymous wrote:Applaud ND who cares about playing a meaningless game. Duke got robbed once in a lifetime opportunity in football playoffs taken away when their platinum brand in hoops has fed the NCAA for last 40 years.

[Apologies to the rest of the posters, but I'm going to keep asking this question until one of the meaningless game posters responds.]

Virtually every bowl game ND (and most other teams) have played in, ever, was "meaningless." What makes this one different?

Anonymous wrote:ND wasn’t invited to the CFP because of their refusal to enter into a P4 conference. Their choice limits the power and influence of the sport’s power brokers, including ESPN. ND understands the game it is playing by staying independent. I like ND, but no tears for them. ND declining a bowl game hurts the power brokers too (as is the case with teams like Iowa State which declined a bowl game and is being fined for it). With most everything in college football revolving around money, it is difficult to get worked up about any of these issues.

I am a Duke grad and am disillusioned about what the school has to do to be competitive in football. Kind of a silly concern because football requires a compromise in everything it touches. My grandfather was a pro football player too and I have lots of interest in the game. Gone are the days of Duke’s Ted Roof where they could show up and be 2-10 just to remain eligible to play basketball in the ACC. From an athletic department survival perspective it is nice to see Duke win the ACC. But make no mistake, they likely are not even an average team and their win makes it more likely that ACC schools will be left out as the football powers march to a one league consolidation. ND is an ACC member in all sports but football, and ND is not going to join the ACC in the state that it is in.

Doesn't Duke have a basketball team that is phenomenal every year ?

Notre Dame is a Big Ten Conference member for ice hockey.

Just requested tickets for my UMiami ds who is in a place with bad cell coverage. Go Canes!

ACC will be gone soon. It is the next Pac-12.

Duke and ND grads are overachieving in high profile careers-Wall St, PE/VC, law firms, Silicon Valley etc. Excluding Vandy and Northwestern, large state flagships are simply not remotely in the same neighborhood. Nice try.

Anonymous wrote:Duke has a big reason to complain.

Duke lost 5 regular season games to Illinois, Tulane, U Conn, Virginia, & Georgia Tech. Excluding Duke's victory over Elon, Duke's schedule was just average. Nothing like playing in the SEC or in the Big Ten Conference.

Congratulations to Duke for winning the ACC !

Duke will play ASU (Arizona State University) in a bowl game which should reveal more about its team this year. Definitely a good match-up for both Duke & ASU. Should be an exciting game.

ASU went 8-4 in the regular season with some tough games against Texas Tech, TCU, & U. Ariizona. ASU beat Texas Tech this year in a close game. Texas Tech is #4 in the CFP with only one loss.

ND wasn’t invited to the CFP because of their refusal to enter into a P4 conference. Their choice limits the power and influence of the sport’s power brokers, including ESPN. ND understands the game it is playing by staying independent. I like ND, but no tears for them. ND declining a bowl game hurts the power brokers too (as is the case with teams like Iowa State which declined a bowl game and is being fined for it). With most everything in college football revolving around money, it is difficult to get worked up about any of these issues.

I am a Duke grad and am disillusioned about what the school has to do to be competitive in football. Kind of a silly concern because football requires a compromise in everything it touches. My grandfather was a pro football player too and I have lots of interest in the game. Gone are the days of Duke’s Ted Roof where they could show up and be 2-10 just to remain eligible to play basketball in the ACC. From an athletic department survival perspective it is nice to see Duke win the ACC. But make no mistake, they likely are not even an average team and their win makes it more likely that ACC schools will be left out as the football powers march to a one league consolidation. ND is an ACC member in all sports but football, and ND is not going to join the ACC in the state that it is in.

Anonymous wrote:Degrees from Duke and ND matter. The rest who cares.

As one with many friends and relatives and acquaintances with degrees from these two schools, they do not matter as much as one might think. A student's major matters more than the school (with a handful of exceptions which does not include either Duke or Notre Dame). Technology has changed things over the past decade. Years ago when Amazon, for example, changed its recruiting philosophy to align with its needs, Amazon greatly expanded its list of target MBA programs beyond the top ten MBA schools. Wanted more & better tech training.

A degree and club, sports, frat/sorority/Greek, or other membership from a state flagship often leads to plum positions in the real world very early in one's career.

Duke has a big reason to complain.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not taking anything away from Indiana, because they are a great team and proved it Saturday but this was their schedule this year:

https://www.espn.com/college-football/team/schedule/_/id/84/indiana-hoosiers

Agree that the first 3 games were against easy teams. Nevertheless, Indiana did beat the #9, #3, and #1 ranked teams in the nation culminating in an undefeated season. All three top ten ranked teams that Indiana beat this season are also Big Ten Conference members.

Both the SEC & the Big Ten Conference need to limit regular season non-conference opponents to one or two maximum. In the near future, both the SEC & the Big Ten Conference may expand further and, hopefully, restrict non-conference opponents to one per each regular season.

Degrees from Duke and ND matter. The rest who cares.

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Anonymous wrote:Why would ND play in a meaningless game that benefits ESPN, a network that openly lobbied against them for weeks?

The system is broken. Everything is biased toward the SEC and their broadcast partner, ESPN, is leading the charge.

Maybe to benefit their fans and the players ?

According to reports, the players voted against the bowl. And the seniors and Love were never going to play in a meaningless game with the NFL on the line. It was the right move. Call out the hypocrisy. Now break with the ACC.

A more mature response would have been to wait a day or two for emotions to settle before casting emotional, reactive votes in line with the childish response from the ND AD that brings shame to the ND football program and to the university.

As an independent, Notre Dame football should be relegated to playing only other independents.

Review ND's football teams schedule this year. Joining either the SEC or the Big Ten Conference would destroy Notre Dame football as ND football could not withstand the weekly punishment of an SEC or Big Ten schedule.

I would personally love to see ND play Alabama's schedule from this year. If they managed to do as well as Alabama, I'd shut up. But they'll never, ever do it, which tells you everything you need to know about that program.

If championship games "don't matter" (Alabama), then why did it matter to BYU's final ranking? They can't keep making these rules for one team and not others.

OMG the whiniest of babies. My comment wasn't even about rankings, it was just pointing out that Alabama played a killer schedule and it would be interesting to see what ND would look like against a similar schedule.

It's hilarious that ND stans are complaining harder about the BYU snub than BYU fans are. Because ND knows the only way to call this outcome "unfair" is to try and argue the entire system is corrupt. Meanwhile BYU is like "I guess we should have won more games." Which is the only acceptable response. If you don't want to be on the bubble and subject to these tricky decisions about which team of several should be ranked #12, then just win your games.

Had ND simply won that game against TAMU, they would have made the playoffs without any of these issues. So it was 100% in their control and they lost.

ND is too cool for Pop-Tarts? ND should play BYU, and it could be called: The Transubstantiation vs. Golden Tablets Showdown.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Why would ND play in a meaningless game that benefits ESPN, a network that openly lobbied against them for weeks?

The system is broken. Everything is biased toward the SEC and their broadcast partner, ESPN, is leading the charge.

Maybe to benefit their fans and the players ?

According to reports, the players voted against the bowl. And the seniors and Love were never going to play in a meaningless game with the NFL on the line. It was the right move. Call out the hypocrisy. Now break with the ACC.

A more mature response would have been to wait a day or two for emotions to settle before casting emotional, reactive votes in line with the childish response from the ND AD that brings shame to the ND football program and to the university.

As an independent, Notre Dame football should be relegated to playing only other independents.

Review ND's football teams schedule this year. Joining either the SEC or the Big Ten Conference would destroy Notre Dame football as ND football could not withstand the weekly punishment of an SEC or Big Ten schedule.

I would personally love to see ND play Alabama's schedule from this year. If they managed to do as well as Alabama, I'd shut up. But they'll never, ever do it, which tells you everything you need to know about that program.

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