Pete Bevacqua: 'All things can be healed' as Notre Dame, ACC feud in response to CFP

Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua said yesterday that “permanent damage” has been done in their relationship with the Atlantic Coast Conference. That doesn’t sound as permanent now, per se, but the Fighting Irish are still very clearly unhappy with the ACC.

Bevacqua discussed the state of their current relationship with the ACC during a press conference he held on Tuesday. He said their athletic department haven’t yet considered what their next steps will be in that, but that it’ll likely result in an eventual meeting between them and those in charge at the Atlantic Coast Conference.

“Yeah, I would tell you, at this point, like, we haven’t really given all of that a ton of thought, you know. I mean, are we looking for an apology? To be quite frank, I don’t think an apology does anything or unwinds what has happened,” said Bevacqua. “But, at the right time, we’ll sit down with ACC leadership, and, I think, have, hopefully, a very frank, honest, hopefully productive conversation. But, I’d tell you that time is not now.”

With the sound of that, one would think he’s still referring to that kind of damage recently done, in the opinion of those at Notre Dame. However, asked again a little later if the relationship could be salvaged, Bevacqua said yes, although again saying that it is strained right now between that league and the Irish.

“I mean, yeah. All things can be healed. Like, I’m not going to be overly dramatic here, right,” Bevacqua said. “But, you know, it did damage. It strained the relationship. It strained the relationship.”

These are the latest comments in what’s been two days’ worth of debate now since Notre Dame missed the College Football Playoff in favor of Miami. A big part of that has been the role that they felt was played in all of this by the ACC, who the Fighting Irish have a scheduling agreement with in football and membership in for other sports, but who also has an interest in a selection by one of their full-membered schools in the Hurricanes. With that, Bevacqua also said today that they were “definitely being targeted,” which they didn’t understand, or appreciate, from those at the ACC.

Conference affiliation, or a general lack thereof, has always been a hot topic when it comes to Notre Dame due to the independence of the Irish. This is now the latest issue they have may with a league, with a lot of work to do now apparently for them to be back in a better place with the ACC.