Snubbed by the College Football Playoff, Notre Dame snubbed its nose at a second-tier bowl game.<\/p>\n
The ninth-ranked Fighting Irish responded to getting dropped in the CFP rankings<\/a> for the second consecutive week by turning down an invitation to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl<\/a> in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a team, we\u2019ve decided to withdraw our name from consideration for a bowl game following the 2025 season,\u201d Notre Dame wrote in a statement posted to its official X account. \u201cWe appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we\u2019re hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Although it might be the exact reaction that many Notre Dame fans wanted, it\u2019s far from ideal for the long-term viability of non-playoff bowl games.<\/p>\n The decision also denies Notre Dame\u2019s seniors a chance for one final game, denies underclassmen from a few extra weeks of practice and denies a legion of fans \u2014 is there a bigger brand in college football? \u2014 from watching this team play again.<\/p>\n Unlike Iowa State and Kansas State, which each got fined $500,000 by the Big 12 for opting out of bowls because of coaching changes, Notre Dame won\u2019t get punished because it\u2019s not a full-fledged member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.<\/p>\n Despite winning every game for nearly three months, Notre Dame fell behind Miami in the final CFP rankings and was left out of the 12-team bracket entirely.<\/p>\n The Fighting Irish, who won their last 10 games by an average of nearly 30 points, watched championship weekend from afar, idle as an independent with no options to impress the selection committee one last time in a league title game. <\/p>\n Athletic director Pete Bevacqua and coach Marcus Freeman took the high road in recent weeks, avoiding too much lobbying and believing their winning streak would be enough to earn a berth over Alabama.<\/p>\n They were mistaken. Miami (10-2) ended up knocking the Irish (10-2) out.<\/p>\n With BYU losing to Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game, the committee ranked Miami and Notre Dame next to each other and turned to the head-to-head metric to determine which one would get the No. 10 seed.<\/p>\n It was Miami, which beat Notre Dame 27-24 in Week 1 of the regular season. <\/p>\n Hunter Yurachek, the chair of the selection committee, said members rewatched the game and were struck by Miami\u2019s shutting down of a Notre Dame running game in a way nobody else did this season.<\/p>\n \u201cThen there was observation from the coaches in the room where Notre Dame did a lot of chasing of some of the athletic receivers, especially on the Miami side,\u201d Yurachek said. \u201cAnd it just felt like there was a little bit more athleticism on the side of Miami versus Notre Dame.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hurricanes will play at Texas A&M in the opening round of the playoff.<\/p>\n No. 12 BYU, No. 13 Vanderbilt and No. 14 Texas \u2014 and, to a lesser extent, Atlantic Coast Conference champion Duke \u2014 are sure to have issues with the final CFP standings, too.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not entitled to anything and we\u2019re not victimized by any process or any committee,\u201d Vandy coach Clark Lea said.<\/p>\n Added Duke coach Manny Diaz: \u201cWhat we found out today is no different than what other schools found out, than what Notre Dame found out or Texas or Vanderbilt or other schools. If you put it in the committee\u2019s hands, it\u2019s outside of your control.\u201d<\/p>\n Notre Dame seems to have the biggest gripe. The committee dropped the Irish one spot after beating Stanford 49-20 and then fell another while not playing.<\/p>\n The real culprit was Notre Dame\u2019s 0-2 start, losing to playoff teams Miami and Texas A&M by a combined four points. <\/p>\n Alabama, meanwhile, became the first three-loss team to make the CFP field. Yurachek explained the logic after the Crimson Tide lost 28-7 to Georgia in the SEC championship game.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir strength of schedule was the highest in the top 11, and (it) felt like in spite of their performance yesterday in the conference championship, they deserve to stay within that nine spot,\u201d Yurachek said.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Snubbed by the College Football Playoff, Notre Dame snubbed its nose at a second-tier bowl game. The ninth-ranked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[9604,5183,163323,1607,2662,2822,2808,399,8262,2652,152186,169199,32857,1778,63166,99],"class_list":["post-336138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-al-state-wire","tag-alabama","tag-clark-lea","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-football","tag-in-state-wire","tag-indiana","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-manny-diaz","tag-marcus-freeman","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}