Notre Dame chose not to play in a bowl game after missing out on the College Football Playoff. A high-ranking administrator at the university was very proud of his players for all of the wrong reasons.
He has since deleted his initial post after widespread criticism and went private on social media.
It would be a cowardly move for any college football fan to hide from the backlash. It is an even more pitiful look for an employee of the university. Stand and face the music!
Who is Timothy P. O’Malley?
According to the University of Notre Dame website, Timothy P. O’Malley (Ph.D) serves as the Associate Director for Research at the McGrath Institute and the Academic Director at the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy. He also holds a concurrent appointment in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
O’Malley received his undergraduate degree from Notre Dame in theology and philosophy and his masters degree from Notre Dame in liturgical studies. Although he earned his doctorate from Boston College, it is South Bend that he will forever call home. Gold and Blue runs through his veins.
O’Malley adapts Romano Guardini’s approach to liturgical-sacramental formation in late modernity. His research and teachings at Notre Dame focuses on liturgical-sacramental theology, marriage and family, Catholic higher education, catechesis, preaching, and spirituality.
To put that more simply, he relies on the old ways of thinking to teach church worship, family and prayer in a modern way. Something like that.
All of this goes to say is that Timothy P. O’Malley, Ph.D is a smart dude. His post on Sunday was not.
Notre Dame bailed on a bowl game after it was left out of the College Football Playoff.
The University of Notre Dame was swapped out of the College Football Playoff in favor of the University of Miami on Sunday. It was a pretty shocking move in terms of how it all went down but the Hurricanes beat the Fighting Irish in a head-to-head matchup so…
The two-loss Golden Domers are perhaps more upset that the Crimson Tide of Alabama made the Playoff with three losses. That argument makes a lot more sense because they did not play each other in the regular season. The SEC bias is real or whatever. I get it.
At the end of the day, Notre Dame did not make the College Football Playoff. And because of how things played out on Saturday, the Fighting Irish chose to boycott a bowl game all together.
O’Malley is proud of the decision. He posted the following statement on social media:
“I’m proud of my students. They made this decision— they’re allowed not to be used by ESPN to make more money. After they were already used by ESPN to make a lot of money.”
O’Malley has since gone private on X. The post, which missed the mark for a few reasons, has since been deleted.
ESPN and Disney will still make plenty of money.
First and foremost, Notre Dame has had an exclusive television contract direct with NBC for more than three decades so the whole “used by ESPN” thing is not quite true. The draw to the Fighting Irish is also not as big as the fans think.
The national title game between Ohio State and Notre Dame drew only 22.1 million viewers. It was the fifth-least watched championship since 1998. The Irish typically hover somewhere between seventh and 12th in television viewership numbers and 15th this season. People really don’t care that much.
To go even one step further, ESPN (Disney) is not going to lose enough money from this Notre Dame boycott to matter. According to former Notre Dame football player-turned-financial advisor Jeff Kilburg, The Mouse is going to lose something like $50 million from the exclusion of his alma mater and the exclusion of the BYU Cougars.
Disney makes approximately $36 million per day from Walt Disney World alone. It does not care.
To go even one step further, Notre Dame will receive special protection in the future. No other program in college football will receive this kind of assurance. There is no bias against the Irish. Rather, the opposite.
O’Malley and the University of Notre Dame fanbase are upset. Understandably so. They are allowed to be salty. A difference in opinion is part of what makes sports so fun.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t a bad look. Two things can be true at once.