Notre Dame 2025

[Bash Riprock]

 

[Irishman]

39 minutes ago, Bash Riprock said:

 

I would take the bet he does not go. he just signed an extension one year ago. he is getting $9 Million a year now with it. The extension also removed the Ohio State and NFL opt outs. That means he is locked in with Notre Dame until 2030. If he goes, he will owe the school. Daboll was getting $5 Million a year from the Giants. Are they really going to double that? 

[gonzoron]

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Edited December 10, 2025 by gonzoron

[Komets2727]

10 hours ago, 23andCounting said:

It's not what I think, it's what everyone else thinks. Haven't won in 40 years, yet everyone is still obsessed with them. 

No, it’s the arrogance of ND fans year in year out.

[temptation]

9 hours ago, Komets2727 said:

No, it’s the arrogance of ND fans year in year out.

Unwarranted arrogance when comparing on field results to perceived elite status if you ask me.

They have gone from "look at our trophy case" to "we get the most eyeballs" as their rally cry.

They used to boast about their own TV network, now every P4 conference has one, lol.

The next 9 months will tell us if they have learned anything from this experience or if they are going to continue to play the victim and make fools of themselves.

Edited December 10, 2025 by temptation

[Muda69]

Notre Dame's argument for CFP snub is hypocritical, naive

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/notre-dame/2025/12/09/notre-dame-football-argument-cfp-snub-hypocritical-pete-bevacqua-ad-athletic-director/87691142007/?tbref=hp

Quote

One certain casualty emerged from Sunday’s controversial reveal of the College Football Playoff bracket. 

Bambi is dead. 

Athletic director Pete Bevacqua and others in and around Notre Dame were apparently the last people in America oblivious to the easily manipulated and at times nonsensical nature of the CFP selection process.

He knows now. The ACC came out of the weekend with one member, Miami, in the playoff and one half-member, Notre Dame, taking its ball and leaving the playground.

When the Irish finally set aside their long list of grievances, though, they will realize they learned somethin: They put their faith in something which never existed in the first place.

We can make reasonable suggestions about improving this system. The ACC needed a more common-sense, pre-emptive approach to selecting its champion to avoid getting Duked. The selection committee should ditch athletic directors and add more completely unattached and unbiased members who could make ruthless arguments and votes free of concerns about optics or political fairness. Any number of nationally respected college football journalists and number crunchers would benefit the process. 

Instead, the biggest takeaway from this whole episode is the astonishing naivete of Notre Dame and its athletic director.  

Nothing exemplifies this more than the most interesting news since the bracket reveal. Bevacqua said Notre Dame recently signed a memorandum of understanding which, beginning next year, locks the Irish into the playoff field if it finishes in the top 12 of the rankings. (Or, top 13 in a playoff field of more than 14 teams.) 

That MOU underscores both Notre Dame and Bevacqua's complete misunderstanding of this process and their awe-shucks suggestion the ACC somehow did them wrong.

The crux of Bevacqua's gripe centers on his school’s ranking prior to Selection Sunday.

If he thought those weekly reveals contributed any certainty to the final outcome, that's on him. The committee is under no such obligation. We are still waiting for the first rankings reveal in which a selection committee does not logically contradict itself somewhere on the list.

The weekly reveals are not just conveniently shown on television. They are a TV show. They exist to drum up conversation and debate. Since the committee can do whatever it wants on Selection Sunday, any notion of transparency is a fantasy.

That may be a jarring reality to accept, but it’s not a new one. It held true during the four-team playoff era. It will hold true after the next inevitable playoff expansion.

Notre Dame also could proactively put itself in position to unquestionably win its way into the field. Instead, it has not merely accepted its position as an independent within a playoff system which rewards conference champions, it demanded that position. Former athletic director Jack Swarbrick agreed to it when he helped craft the very structure Notre Dame now attacks.

Many other two- or even three-loss teams can go to a conference championship game and have their playoff entrance stamped no questions asked. Notre Dame is the only relevant team which looked at the disadvantage of independence and said “Yes please.” That means, once in a while, the whim of the committee will put someone else in the field over a deserving Irish team.

In lieu of joining the ACC or Big Ten or some other conference, Notre Dame went another route. Per that agreement it recently signed, by finishing in the top 12 of the rankings, it will receive a conference champion-like automatic bid. (One which did not need to actually win a conference championship game, obviously.)

Which brings us to the scorn now directed at its limited football partners in the ACC.

Bevacqua said the ACC went too far in its promotion of Miami in the head-to-head discussion about the final at-large playoff spot. In his mind, because the school and the conference engage in a mutually beneficial scheduling arrangement in football and full membership in two dozen other sports, the league should not have played favorites.

Let's set aside for a moment the hypocrisy of expecting equal football allegiance without actually committing to it.

Consider a future 12-team playoff after Notre Dame's MOU goes into effect. Hypothetically, and as is usually the case, any Group of Five champions rank outside the top 12. The final at-large spot comes down to either Notre Dame or an equally successful non-champion from the ACC.

Now imagine the committee decides that other team — Miami, Clemson, South Carolina, whoever — rightly deserves the No. 11 spot over Notre Dame. Will the Irish set aside their automatic bid in deference to its conference chum? Isn't that what a good and fully committed conference partner might do? Wouldn't that be the fair approach?

Of course not. Prior to all of this bellyaching, Notre Dame established an agreement which will absolutely bump aside a more or equally deserving ACC team the first chance it gets.

One could imagine the AD at Florida State or Virginia Tech or North Carolina saying something like: "Why put these young student-athletes through these false emotions just to pull the rug out from underneath them ... 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."

You don’t have to imagine Bevacqua saying that. He just did — in an interview with Yahoo! Sports.

However, that scenario presented above will never happen. And that truly is evidence of the pollyannaish attitude Notre Dame apparently takes into these football decisions. 

Put yourself in the selection committee war room on Selection Sunday. By consensus, you feel power conference Team A deserves the No. 11 spot — the final at-large spot — ahead of No. 12 Notre Dame. Do you really think the committee will rank the Irish 12th, knowing it will usurp their actual rankings and foment considerable outrage about the system — not to mention resentment of the Fighting Irish?

No, the committee will do one of two things prior to the final episode of that season’s TV series. It will either bite its lip and put the Irish at No. 11, or it will find a reason to put them at No. 13. The 12-team playoff could go on for another 50 years without one instance of Notre Dame finishing No. 12 and bumping out another power conference team.

Somehow, Notre Dame signed that agreement under the impression the committee cannot adjust the margins of the rankings to reflect what it considers the cleanest outcome.

Notre Dame has existed as a power broker in college football for decades. That influence carried more weight in the olden days when the sport was regionally splintered, the championship process completely imaginary.

Yet somehow, it went into the weekend with a complete misunderstanding of how this process has been working for well over a decade now.

"As I said to 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,” Bevacqua told Yahoo! Sports.

Welcome to the real world, Pete.

Nice takes by Mr. Baird.

[Footballking16]

33 minutes ago, temptation said:

Unwarranted arrogance when comparing on field results to perceived elite status if you ask me.

They have gone from "look at our trophy case" to "we get the most eyeballs" as their rally cry.

They used to boast about their own TV network, now every P4 conference has one, lol.

The next 9 months will tell us if they have learned anything from this experience or if they are going to continue to play the victim and make fools of themselves.

They don’t even have the most eyeballs, not even close. Of the top 25 most watched regular season games this year, ND appeared in one game….a stand alone game on a Sunday of a holiday weekend. I hope they do something stupid like leave the ACC. Without a conference scheduling partner, they are in trouble down the road.

 

Edited December 10, 2025 by Footballking16

[temptation]

23 minutes ago, Footballking16 said:

They don’t even have the most eyeballs, not even close. Of the top 25 most watched regular season games this year, ND appeared in one game….a stand alone game on a Sunday of a holiday weekend. I hope they do something stupid like leave the ACC. Without a conference scheduling partner, they are in trouble down the road.

 

Yeah, I saw this too.  I actually think that their being pigeon holed into NBC, particularly Peacock only games HURTS viewership.

Plus folks sorta get tired of watching a hammer meet a nail, which is what 75% of the Irish's schedule mimicked this season.

Cannot believe their AD keeps making an ass of himself publicly.

Miss me with that "epic 10 game run that has never been duplicated" nonsense.

[Footballking16]

6 minutes ago, temptation said:

Yeah, I saw this too.  I actually think that their being pigeon holed into NBC, particularly Peacock only games HURTS viewership.

Plus folks sorta get tired of watching a hammer meet a nail, which is what 75% of the Irish's schedule mimicked this season.

Cannot believe their AD keeps making an ass of himself publicly.

Miss me with that "epic 10 game run that has never been duplicated" nonsense.

Yep and their schedule (which already sucks) is going to get even worse if they do something dumb like leave the ACC, it's already shaping up to be terrible next year.

Right now ND is guaranteed 7 games a year; 5 team ACC schedule, Navy, and USC. USC is seriously close to pulling the series from ND unless it's played early in the season. Imagine ND trying to schedule 11 new opponents every year in the future? It'd be a nightmare and I hope it happens. 

There's zero reason for a B10 or SEC school to ever schedule Notre Dame again with the MOU that goes into effect next year that automatically grants ND a playoff birth if they finish in the top 12. 

[Coach Nowlin]

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

Notre Dame's argument for CFP snub is hypocritical, naive

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/notre-dame/2025/12/09/notre-dame-football-argument-cfp-snub-hypocritical-pete-bevacqua-ad-athletic-director/87691142007/?tbref=hp

Nice takes by Mr. Baird.

BIG BIG Fan of Nathan's work over the years, talented and would make a great columnist down the road if given that opportunity 

[PDB26]

1 hour ago, Footballking16 said:

Yep and their schedule (which already sucks) is going to get even worse if they do something dumb like leave the ACC, it's already shaping up to be terrible next year.

Right now ND is guaranteed 7 games a year; 5 team ACC schedule, Navy, and USC. USC is seriously close to pulling the series from ND unless it's played early in the season. Imagine ND trying to schedule 11 new opponents every year in the future? It'd be a nightmare and I hope it happens. 

There's zero reason for a B10 or SEC school to ever schedule Notre Dame again with the MOU that goes into effect next year that automatically grants ND a playoff birth if they finish in the top 12. 

While this new agreement is unfair on its face, there’s nothing stopping a committee from placing a marginal (10-2) Notre Dame at 13 in its final rankings next season. 

[Bobref]

6 minutes ago, PDB26 said:

There's zero reason for a B10 or SEC school to ever schedule Notre Dame again with the MOU that goes into effect next year that automatically grants ND a playoff birth if they finish in the top 12. 

I believe the MOU applies to everyone, not just Notre Dame.

[23andCounting]

5 minutes ago, PDB26 said:

While this new agreement is unfair on its face, there’s nothing stopping a committee from placing a marginal (10-2) Notre Dame at 13 in its final rankings next season. 

Probably a moot point, although you're right. Early projections are calling them a Top 3 team. Talk about waking a sleeping giant. The sham that took place on Sunday will propel team to heights next season that will make the haters lose their minds. My only concern next season is the schedule and whether it will prepare them for the playoff. 

[Coach Nowlin]

4 minutes ago, 23andCounting said:

Probably a moot point, although you're right. Early projections are calling them a Top 3 team. Talk about waking a sleeping giant. The sham that took place on Sunday will propel team to heights next season that will make the haters lose their minds. My only concern next season is the schedule and whether it will prepare them for the playoff. 

the ole running clock and pulling starters problem huh?   

 

[PDB26]

13 minutes ago, Bobref said:

I believe the MOU applies to everyone, not just Notre Dame.

I haven’t seen any reporting on that point, but it would mean they’re going to take the top 12 with no guarantee of access to a G5 champion.

[gonzoron]

Notre Dame has the 2nd largest fan base in the US. That's not likely to change any. Some people may be upset they're not in the CFP this year, true fans will be there to support them next year as well. The Notre Dame haters are the ones attempting to keep this a controversy, it's not that big of a deal for a fan. After all, it's just a game.

College football programs with largest fan bases

1. Ohio State — 11.26 million

2. Notre Dame — 8.21 million

3. Texas — 7.82 million

4. Penn State — 6.36 million

5. Michigan — 6.26 million

6. Florida — 5.89 million

7. Oregon — 5.45 million

8. Alabama — 5.34 million

9. Wisconsin — 4.57 million

10. USC — 4.46 million

11. LSU — 4.02 million

[Coach Nowlin]

Yea;   I woud venture the viewship numbers has everything to do with stand alone games on stupid APPS 

 

wonder if they're is a viewship ratings from when on NBC national or stand alone app game 

[gonzoron]

17 minutes ago, Coach Nowlin said:

Yea;   I woud venture the viewship numbers has everything to do with stand alone games on stupid APPS 

 

wonder if they're is a viewship ratings from when on NBC national or stand alone app game 

Are you replying to me? Comparing viewership to fan bases is like comparing apples to trees. I watch MANY football games involving teams I am not a fan of.

[GOLDRUSH1985]

On 12/8/2025 at 9:30 PM, temptation said:

Eh, over time I’ve learned that the 10s are usually high maintenance.

You can't possibly know this first hand . 

[GOLDRUSH1985]

4 hours ago, temptation said:

Unwarranted arrogance when comparing on field results to perceived elite status if you ask me.

They have gone from "look at our trophy case" to "we get the most eyeballs" as their rally cry.

They used to boast about their own TV network, now every P4 conference has one, lol.

The next 9 months will tell us if they have learned anything from this experience or if they are going to continue to play the victim and make fools of themselves.

Every P4 conference does have a TV network that they have to divide between 15 schools . How many schools is ND dividing their NBC contract with ? 

[Bobref]

2 hours ago, PDB26 said:

I haven’t seen any reporting on that point, but it would mean they’re going to take the top 12 with no guarantee of access to a G5 champion.

I don’t understand why they just don’t make the thing public. I thought the Committee was all about “transparency.” I mean, most of the cat is out of the bag already.

[Bash Riprock]

3 hours ago, 23andCounting said:

Probably a moot point, although you're right. Early projections are calling them a Top 3 team. Talk about waking a sleeping giant. The sham that took place on Sunday will propel team to heights next season that will make the haters lose their minds. My only concern next season is the schedule and whether it will prepare them for the playoff. 

You go get'em Rudy!!

 

[Muda69]

[temptation]

1 hour ago, GOLDRUSH1985 said:

You can't possibly know this first hand . 

If you only knew...

[Footballking16]

3 hours ago, 23andCounting said:

Probably a moot point, although you're right. Early projections are calling them a Top 3 team. Talk about waking a sleeping giant. The sham that took place on Sunday will propel team to heights next season that will make the haters lose their minds. My only concern next season is the schedule and whether it will prepare them for the playoff. 

Notre Dame is so mad at the playoff committee that they're going to take it out on Rice University.