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Notre Dame is making a drastic move after not making the college football playoffs.
On Saturday, the college football playoff committee revealed that they had decided to put in Alabama and Miami over Notre Dame.
CFP selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek said Miami’s 27-24 head-to-head victory against Notre Dame was eventually the deciding factor in putting in the Canes over the Fighting Irish.
“Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungering for,” Yurachek said. “You look at those two teams on paper, and they are almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, the results against common opponents.”
“But the one metric we had to fall back on, again, was the head-to-head.”
After the playoff committee’s decision, Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua said the team would be withdrawing from bowl consideration.
“As a team, we’ve decided to withdraw our name from consideration for a bowl game following the 2025 season,” said a statement credited to the 2025 Notre Dame Football Team. “We appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we’re hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026.”
According to ESPN’s Jen Lada, Bevacqua was frustrated with the college football committee’s process, which gave Notre Dame false hope in thinking they would finish ahead of Miami.
Bevacqua expressed frustration with the entire process, telling ESPN’s Jen Lada that the team felt as if it had the rug pulled out from under them, in part because they believed they were well situated to make the field because of where it had been previously ranked.
In the first CFP rankings release on Nov. 4, Notre Dame was No. 10, and Miami was No. 18. The Irish moved up to No. 9 for a few weeks before dropping back to No. 10 last week. Miami had slowly moved up the rankings and was No. 12 last week.
Bevacqua told ESPN that any rankings ahead of the final ones are a “farce and total waste of time.”
Here’s how the college football world reacted to Notre Dame’s decision to remove themselves from bowl consideration.
I understand Notre Dame being upset about the playoff but to throw a pity party and not play in a bowl game is quite a new precedent for a 10-2 football team
— Booger (@ESPNBooger) December 7, 2025
10-2 Notre Dame opting out of a bowl solely because it missed the playoff might actually be the thing that starts to tear down the high end of the bowl system.
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) December 7, 2025
Update: Notre Dame reportedly turned down the Pop-Tarts bowl game vs BYU.
Notre Dame declined bid to play BYU in Pop-Tarts Bowl, sources told @On3sports https://t.co/2ucqdsmCfW
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 7, 2025