Mario Cristobal reacts to Notre Dame opting out of a bowl game after College Football Playoff snub

Going into the final College Football Playoff rankings, it was clear somebody was going to get snubbed. In the end, the selection committee ended up taking Alabama and Miami as its final two at-large bids, leaving Notre Dame out in the cold.

Notre Dame took the snub hard and has been very open about that fact. In the end, the Irish would even decline a bowl bid. That was a decision that Miami head coach Mario Cristobal shared some of his own thoughts on during is CFP selection day press conference.

“That’s their choice,” Mario Cristobal said. “I don’t know how that affects or doesn’t affect how things are done and processes. Actually, Coach [Nick] Saban always had a great line. It was like, ‘If you want to make everybody happy, don’t coach and get involved in football. Go sell ice cream because the ice cream man makes everybody happy.’ In football, not everybody’s going to be happy.”

The selection committee process has come under scrutiny this season, regardless of whether or not the results were correct. That’s because Miami and Notre Dame had relatively similar resumes, but the Hurricanes held a head-to-head win over the Irish. However, Notre Dame was ahead in the rankings until the eleventh hour when the two were flipped.

“Notre Dame’s a great football team. All processes need to get, I don’t know, assessed again and remedied wherever they can,” Cristobal said. “But I think everybody’s working at it. Last year, we were excluded, and we weren’t very happy. And, you know, it’s a tough business, man. It’s a really, really tough business. I respect everybody and everyone involved in it. And my focus right now is really on just getting us prepared for Texas A&M.”

Josh Pate reacts to Notre Dame skipping bowl season amid CFP snub

There has been a rash of criticism for Notre Dame skipping a bowl coming in. That includes from Josh Pate, who explained his feelings about the Irish skipping a bowl on Monday during an appearance on Get Up.

“I hate it with every fiber of my being. I’m not going to go as far as to say I don’t understand it, though. I think I do understand it, but from a competitive standpoint, it is a fact that there are seniors on that team who thought they had at least one more football game in their careers, whose careers are now over,” Pate said.

“The other part of that is, since the beginning of time, bowl games, postseason play has mattered for your true freshmen that you’re getting ready to play next year. That just got tossed on the scrap heap. Not for the same reasons that like your Iowa States of the world aren’t playing — their coach left and whatnot. This is just, ‘We didn’t make the Playoff so we’re not gonna play.’ I hate it, but it is what it is, I guess.”