Notre Dame got screwed. The decision to pick Miami by the college playoff gurus rather than Notre Dame was wrong. But that’s not the worst of it. The playoff committee big shots said Miami narrowly defeated the Irish in the first game of the year. That’s true, college football. Since then, Notre Dame lost only one game, a close contest to Texas A ⁓ the seventh best team in the country.
Miami lost to SMU in Louisville, two teams, not even the top 25. Miami also didn’t beat anyone in that group. Notre Dame defeated two top 25 teams, Southern Cal and Navy. Notre Dame was just simply better. Worse was the explanation of the committee chair, Hunter Yurichek, who said Miami and Notre Dame had had really almost identical schedules. That was just simply not true.
Then the justification was for the first game of the season. Actually, that wasn’t really why they did it. The real reason was that lobbying by the 16 other Atlantic Coast Conference teams on behalf of Miami. As you see, these schools will share in any playoff revenue accruing to the Miami Hurricanes. Now we’re an ACC family. My wife went to Duke, I went to Wake Forest, but this was just sleazy.
The decision was about money, not merit, and the committee lied. I give the committee credit for the last two choices, Tulane and James Madison, but stiffing Notre Dame and lying about it cast a shadow over everything they did.