Upon further review, what members of the College Football Playoff selection committee did to Notre Dame by leaving the Fighting Irish out of their 12-team tournament despite everything was predictable.
So were the explosions of glee.
Haters in the house!
Those who aren’t into Notre Dame can’t stand that the Fighting Irish are the only major independent football program in the solar system, and that they’ve spent four decades (and counting) with their own national TV network, and that they’ve rarely played before less than a stuffed house at home or on the road through 19 American presidencies, and that they have the audacity to wear those shiny helmets emulating their Golden Dome on campus, and that they produced Rockne and the Gipper and the Four Horsemen, along with the Rocket and the Victory March.
Oh, and they fume that you can scream yourself as navy blue as Notre Dame’s home jerseys, and the Irish still couldn’t care less what you think.
Notre Dame bashing begins and ends with money.
Among other things, every team reaching the CFP must split its earnings with conference members.
Every team but Notre Dame.
In fact, the Irish just lost a chance to return to the national championship game in consecutive years to pocket another $20 million without having to share it with anybody else. Which causes those who aren’t into Notre Dame to yell something to the top of their lungs as if they’re part of a cult.
They need to join a conference.
They need to join a conference.
They need to join a conference.
What’s that all about?
It’s simple: Those who aren’t into Notre Dame resent that their team can’t do something like, oh, say, pocket $20 million without having to share it with anybody else, and that their team doesn’t have its NBC contract, and that their team hasn’t spent most seasons generating the sellout crowds of Notre Dame since near the turn of the century (the 20th, not the 21st), and that their team doesn’t have anything close to shiny gold helmets or a cult movie with their Daniel Eugene “Rudy” Ruettiger.
Did I mention the selection committee taking Alabama and Miami over the Irish in this battle of bubble teams was predictable?
It also was crazy, illogical, ludicrous, silly, unfathomable, ridiculous and unprofitable, especially since THE NOTRE DAME GAME remains nearly as huge as breathing for most of the Irish’s opponents every year.
No program has prospered more in college football over the past decade than Georgia under Kirby Smart. His Bulldogs have won 85% of the time with two national championships, and they’ve sold out 84 straight games at Sanford Stadium.
What was then a 90-year-old facility during the 2019 season was expanded that September for THE NOTRE DAME GAME along the way to an unprecedented Georgia home crowd of 93,246.
That pushed Notre Dame’s NCAA-record among the big boys of college football for triggering the attendance record at opposing stadiums to 10.
Then there is that TV thing.
Notre Dame is the only college football program ever to have a contract with a national network showing all of its home games. Nobody else can attract that many eyes on a consistent basis. The Irish’s original deal with NBC began in 1991, and before last season, it was extended through 2029 for $22 million per year.
So you get the picture: Notre Dame football drives ticket sales and TV ratings, and such a combination has become even more of the bottom line these days in collegiate and professional sports.
But even though THE NOTRE DAME GAME also helps the pocketbooks of those beyond the city limits of South Bend, Indiana – where the Irish reside, and where I was born and raised – the selection committee shunned Notre Dame anyway.
Let’s start with “despite everything.”
Georgia blasted a visibly overmatched Alabama team out of the SEC Championship Game 28-7 Saturday in Atlanta, and the Crimson Tide finished 10-3. No three-loss team had ever made the CFP – you know, before this selection committee proclaimed Alabama shouldn’t be penalized for playing an extra game over Notre Dame (no conference championship game as an independent) and Miami (which didn’t qualify for the ACC championship game).
Fine. We’ll just focus for the moment on Alabama joining Notre Dame and Miami at 10-2 after the regular season.
* Alabama lost to No. 8 Oklahoma and 5-7 Florida State.
* Miami dropped games to Louisville and SMU, both 8-4.
* Notre Dame was still alive during the last seconds against No. 7 Texas A&M and No. 10 Miami before losing by a total of four points.
Advantage, Notre Dame.
In contrast, the selection committee mentioned Alabama’s strength of schedule was 11th among its peers compared to Notre Dame at 42nd, but Miami was 44th.
The selecton committee also mentioned Alabama shocked Georgia at Georgia during the regular season, but Notre Dame won its final 10 games by an average of 30 points, including against three 9-win teams (Southern Cal, Boise State and Navy), and Miami, well, I’ll get to the selection committee and Miami.
For one, the selection committee said the last spot came down to Miami or Notre Dame, which was a needless debate contrived by the selection committee.
It refused to drop Alabama from ninth in the standings after the Tide’s thorough whipping in the SEC championship game. It also defied logic by moving Miami from No. 12 and out of the CFP to No. 10 in replace of Notre Dame, which dropped to No. 11 and away from consideration in a flash.
Remember, too, that going back to early November, the Irish had spent each of the previous five CFP rankings in the top 10.
Miami was 18th at the start.
As a result, Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua told ESPN.com the truth by saying any of the selection committee’s rankings ahead of the final one were a “farce and total waste of time.”
Here was the biggest farce: The selection committee claimed that since Miami and Notre Dame were side by side in the final rankings, its members miraculously discovered the only way to decide the winner for that last slot was to re-watch the August game between the two teams.
Since Miami won that head-to-head competition, the selection committee said it had to pick the Hurricanes.
Which is it?
After the 1993 season, Notre Dame and Florida State finished with one loss, and Florida State’s only defeat occurred that November at Notre Dame during what was called “The Game of the Century.”
The writers and the coaches who decided the national champions in college football during those days ignored that head-to-head competition thing and gave the 1993 title to Florida State and its legendary head coach Bobby Bowden. They claimed Notre Dame’s home loss at the end of the regular season to underdog Boston College was worst than that silly head-to-head thing.
Four years before that, Notre Dame took an undefeated record and No. 1 ranking into Miami for the last game of the season and lost 27-10. Both Miami and Notre Dame finished with one loss during that 1989 regular season, but even though Miami barely slipped by Alabama 33-25 in the Sugar Bowl, Notre Dame flattened No. 1 Colorado 21-6 in the Orange Bowl.
The writers and the coaches gave the national championship to Miami, and they cited head-to-head competition.
Yeah, but in 1993 . . . never mind.
We’re back to why this was predictable.
On Tuesday, January 4, 1994, when I was a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I wrote, “There is obviously one standard for Notre Dame when it comes to winning national championships and another for everybody else.”
And then I added . . .
“Historians of those who punt, pass and kick in the shadow of the Golden Dome know there are three givens in life: (1) People hate Notre Dame; (2) People really hate Notre Dame and (3) People really have Notre Dame.”
Nearly 32 years later, nothing has changed.
