Column: Notre Dame gets a special carveout from the CFP that goes too far

Notre Dame didn’t like the news it received today. It learned that the Fighting Irish were left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff. It then decided not to participate in a bowl game after a 10-2 season.

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It’s fine that the Fighting Irish are upset, but then Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua told Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports information that would burn through most of the oxygen for the sport on any other day.

In an interesting wrinkle, as part of a memorandum of understanding signed by CFP officials last spring, Notre Dame will be assured of making the playoff if it is ranked in the top 12 starting next year, Bevacqua tells Yahoo Sports. For instance, if this year’s circumstances unfold next year, the final at-large team (Miami) would have gotten automatically bumped from the field for No. 11 Notre Dame.

If the playoff is expanded to 14 teams and there are more at-large berths added to the field (from seven to nine), Notre Dame is guaranteed into the field if it is ranked No. 13 or better, according to the MOU.

Notre Dame’s independence has never bothered me all that much. Every year, ND takes on the risk of missing the CFP with a 12-game schedule. There’s no opportunity to create the cherished “extra data point.”

I might have to change my tune upon reading that from Dellenger.

Notre Dame already has an outsized influence on the sport. Every conference has a president or chancellor representative on the College Football Playoff’s Board of Managers. Notre Dame? Rev. Robert Dowd has a spot with a full vote by the virtue of being Notre Dame’s president. And the CFP Management Committee? It’s made up of the 10 FBS conference commissioners and… Bevacqua!

This isn’t about the NBC contract that fills the Fighting Irish’s coffers annually and gives Marcus Freeman‘s program a platform and a broadcast television spotlight. This isn’t about the Atlantic Coast Conference agreement that places a handful of teams from that league on ND’s schedule every year, simplifying one of the more challenging aspects of their independence.

This is a full-on carveout made for one of the sport’s current haves. This is an opportunity that exists only for the Irish.

If this option was available to, say, Texas, then Chris Del Conte should have been calling someone at the CFP from sunrise to sunset and maybe even during the early morning hours.

“Hello, is this Rich Clark’s office? Yes, the CFP executive director? Hey, it’s Del Conte down in Austin. Listen, I understand there’s a MOU signed by Notre Dame that could have them leapfrog teams ahead of them in the rankings. Can I get this same carveout?”

The fact that this made its way to the national college football consciousness today of all days is a bit of an indictment of the continued inconsistencies put on display by the entity that is the College Football Playoff. Not to lend the Irish a helping hand here, but ND was ahead of Miami all season, including in the most recent Tuesday rankings, until the rankings that mattered most. What changed with both teams off? Notre Dame didn’t play any of the teams Power Conference teams contending on Championship Saturday, nor did Miami. How does that happen?

How does Notre Dame get this special treatment? How did other members of the Management Committee and the Board of Managers approve this?

Independence for the Fighting Irish used to not be all that much of an issue for me. They played their schedule and took the risks associated with it. In the original 12-team format, they even forfeited the chance to receive a first-round bye because of their independence. A downstream effect of first-round byes going to the four highest-ranked teams in 2025 meant Notre Dame could get one of those passes to the quarterfinals. That’s fine, it’s just an effect of what was a good decision.

But this? This is a clear carveout for one team. The fact that this was agreed to by CFP leadership is absurd. Texas should ask for it to prove a point. And if they don’t get it, college football should wonder why ND is getting another blessing to help it in its decision to be independent especially when that blessing could be a curse for another deserving football program.