Notre Dame AD slams CFP rankings process: ‘They have to mean something’
By David Wasson
Published:
Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua answered questions about Notre Dame’s College Football Playoff snub on Monday.
Bevacqua appeared on the Dan Patrick Show to discuss his issues with the process that led Notre Dame to believe it had made the 12-team bracket. The Fighting Irish were ranked ahead of Miami in the penultimate rankings release before sliding behind the Hurricanes on Sunday despite both teams being idle on conference championship weekend.
“I get why people think it is sour grapes. But it is disappointment. We take this seriously, as do other universities,” Bevacqua said on The Dan Patrick Show. “The rankings can’t just be musical chairs at some fifth-grade birthday party. They have to mean something. To me, what happened to us, is alarming.”
Bevacqua added that the CFP selection committee’s apparent comparison of Notre Dame to Alabama in the preliminary weekly rankings gave the Irish a false sense of scope.
“Listen, everybody kind of wants to do right by their team. We felt like did what we needed to do this season to earn a spot in the College Football Playoffs,” Bevacqua said. “We feel that we have one of the very best teams in the country, and the majority of people who follow this sport so closely agree.
“Every indication that we had from that first ranking suggested that the committee agreed with us. We were always being compared to Alabama, and we couldn’t possibly have ended the season better than we did.”
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.
