Notre Dame AD says ACC did ‘permanent damage’ to relationship during CFP debate
By David Wasson
Published:
Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua made it clear on Monday that he’s not pleased with how the ACC handled the College Football Playoff debate between Miami and the Fighting Irish.
Bevacqua made his comments during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show.
“I have tremendous respect for Miami. Great team, great school, and their athletic director Dan Radakovich is a good friend. And all the teams in the ACC, wonderful universities. We have no gripes about any of the schools in the ACC,” Bevacqua said. “But we were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack, really, their biggest business partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 other sports.
“I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t say that they have certainly done permanent damage in the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame.”
Patrick asked Bevacqua to expound on what he meant, and the Notre Dame official did just that.
“We didn’t appreciate the fact that we were singled out repeatedly and compared to Miami. Not by Miami – Miami has every right to do that,” Bevacqua said. “But it raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us. That is not something we chose to do here … and it isn’t something we would be comfortable with.”
While Notre Dame is not an ACC member in football, the Fighting Irish are ACC members in 24 other sports and have a football scheduling arrangement with the conference.
The ACC made numerous social media posts and programming decisions in recent weeks that Notre Dame seems to have taken exception to. Here’s a clip of Bevacqua’s comments:
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
