Anonymous wrote:Listen to this giant, petulant baby throwing a massive tantrum:

“There is no explanation that could possibly be given to explain the outcome,” Bevacqua said. “As I said to (Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman), 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.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:weak schedule. navy, bc, stanford, purdue -if they want to be in the playoff and not be in a conference they have to play the top teams.

Or at least more good teams.

Also they need to actually win the games against the good teams they play. They didn't have a single impressive win this season. They ran up the score against extremely weak teams and lost to the two comparable teams they played. That's it.

This is one of the reasons they should have played a bowl game against BYU, simply to prove that they could beat a decent team. Had they played BYU and won, this would have at least demonstrated that their strong record wasn't entirely due to a weak schedule. As it stands, the best argument you can make for the quality of ND's team this year is that they *almost* beat Texas A&M. And this is a problem entirely of their own making.

Sometimes other teams have cushier schedules but it's not their own creation -- they play in conferences with weaker opponents and get lucky with some scheduling. ND's weak schedule, every single year, is something they dictate for themselves. And never more so this year when they chose not to play BYU after also losing games to Texas A&M and Miami. I guess the team didn't feel it had anything to prove? Sounds like a team that isn't going to the playoffs.

ND, for once, appropriately rated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I was a ND fan/student/parent/whatever I would be embarrassed. This is not a good lesson for the players, for one.

It's very obvious that the entitled belief that ND is somehow "special" is running up against the reality and it's causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for ND. Most ND boosters are the same -- they can't conceive of a system that doesn't preserve a special place for ND just because it's ND, so they are losing it and declaring everything "broken" and "unfair" simply because ND would up just outside the selection.

The irony here is that of course the system is broken and unfair, it always has been. It's just that previously this benefitted ND. The inability to recognize this *should* be embarrassing to people who also claim ND is a superior academic institutions, but of course that kind of self reflection is beyond the superior souls who make up ND's alumni so instead they are pitching a fit.

Anonymous wrote:Since this is a college board. Per 2026 US News rankings- Duke 7, ND 20, UMiami 64, JMU 151, and UAlabama 169. That says it all.

Anonymous wrote:Since this is a college board. Per 2026 US News rankings- Duke 7, ND 20, UMiami 64, JMU 151, and UAlabama 169. That says it all.

“There is no explanation that could possibly be given to explain the outcome,” Bevacqua said. “As I said to (Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman), 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.”

Anonymous wrote:Sports commentator Paul Finebaum was on ESPN this morning. He was on fire ! Called Notre Dame football "cry-babies" and called Notre Dame "the laughingstock of college football". Finebaum said Notre Dame is responsible for its failure to qualify for the 12 team CFP because Notre Dame thinks its better than everyone else. ND football thinks that it's too good to join a conference & too good to be ignored.

Not sure which ESPN commentator stated the obvious: All ND football had to do to get in the 12 team CFP was to join the ACC and win the conference title.

Paul Finebaum lamented the CFP's exclusion of U Texas, Notre Dame, BYU, & Vanderbilt. Said that Tulane & James Madison do not belong. Ole Miss already beat Tulane in the regular season and is a 16.5 point favorite over Tulane in the CFP first round game. U Oregon is more than a 20 point favorite over JMU in the first round.

Solution for disappointed ND football fans:

Expand the CFP to 16 teams (with no byes).

and/or

Get Notre Dame to become a full football member of the ACC.

Regarding strength of schedule: Notre Dame was #44 and U Miami was #45, but U Miami beat ND in a head-to-head game.

Anonymous wrote:Who cares about Finebaum never listen to him. Duke played by the rules and won the ACC championship they should be in automatically. Coach K and Duke basketball with their ratings machine subsidized NCAA expenses for decades. Then a once in 100 year s Duke football team gets robbed by putting in the likes of academic powerhouses Miami and JMU. Resentment or envy on that CFP committee screwed the Blue Devils. Good for ND.

Anonymous wrote:The real victim here is the Georgia Tech players. Now they have to go down to Orlando for a week, have fun in the sun, spend time with their teammates, do all the fun activities involved with this Bowl game (and it's one of the best for that) and play the game they love again. The winners are ND players. They get to stay in South Bend, endure freezing wind and temperatures and enjoy all the wonderful things to do in South Bend. The school was really looking out for them here.

Anonymous wrote:weak schedule. navy, bc, stanford, purdue -if they want to be in the playoff and not be in a conference they have to play the top teams.